Recent reviews by JJZPGG

Definitely one for fans of Dear Esther. Looks fantastic, with very light puzzle elements. Without giving too much away, I feel the story conforms to a few emerging walking simulator tropes, but certainly not enough to dissuade to you from playing.
Clocks in at under two hours, so wait for a sale - but this title is definitely worth picking up.

An absolute masterpiece of psychological and existential horror. As someone who couldn't last more than an hour in Amnesia, I was enthralled with this game from beginning to end. Frictional Games do an exemplary job in creating an atmosphere which is both terrifying and tragic, as you wander through the remnants of Earth. The story may not be breaking new ground (fans of The Swapper may recognise a few themes), but it is presented in a fresh, exciting way.

SOMA will be my benchmark for horror games. It combines atmosphere, narrative and environmental storytelling, horror, and humanity in an intelligent way that neither patronises nor obfuscates. It's a thought-provoking story well presented and well told, wrapped up in a creative iteration of an easily-mishandled genre. The horror elements are tasteful, not needing to resort to jump scares or gore to make its point. The horror is in the story, in the world you're exploring, and the monsters you encounter are natural extensions of that world, not simply aberrations lurking within it. If Frictional Games can continue on this trajectory then I'm incredibly excited to see what they do next.

Dark Souls without the soul.

On paper, The Surge should appeal to fans of the souls series. Unfortunately, that's only where the similarities exist: on paper. In execution, The Surge lacks much of the complexity and depth of the souls games.

The combat becomes stale, in part due to the lack of enemy variety. The way they look may change as the game progresses, but it all boils down to the same rinse-and-repeat tactics as you come up against yet another randomly-armoured humanoid. The weapon profiency system means you'll probably be using the same weapon for the majority of the game, as your skill with other weapon types will be so low as to essentially negate any real desire to use them. This even stretches to different weapons of the same class, as your proficiency with a particular one-handed weapon doesn't seem to benefit you when wielding another. The dismemberment system however is a satisfying mechanic, and a cool way of collecting upgrades, weapons, armour, and loot.

The boss fights are good, if a little lacklustre, and the small number of them works considering how few unique locations there actually are in the game. Bosses for the sake of them is not always wise, and given the flow of the story and the locations you visit, the number and placement works.

The sci fi grimdark aesthetic creates a sameyness in level design, which can make exploration tedious as you traipse through yet another service duct. There's a claustrophobia which, while perhaps appropriate, made me feel the levels were intentionally maze-like in an attempt to disguise just how small they actually are. The game does have a certain amount of complexity in level layout, made manifest primarily by the traditional unlocking of shortcuts back to your safehouse, but unless you consider this mechanic to be the hallmark of interesting level design you'll soon be yearning for areas with actual personality and uniqueness. Doors which you encounter but aren't yet able to open should provide a tantalising motivation to backtrack and explore previous areas, if only you could remember in which dimly lit, pipe-filled corridor you saw it...

The NPC side missions are glorified fetch quests and have little bearing on the story or your character. And, unless you want to feel like an underpowered weakling with a new weapon halfway through the game, the rewards often just take up space in your inventory.

The Surge feels like a copy of a copy, a half-heard description, a humourous Google translate error. It's the result of a too-literal interpretation of the soulsborne ethos - "make fights hard, make levels twisty, make deaths punishing" - which misses what those games are by aiming to replicate what they do.

People are asking why I've recommended this game. I recommend The Surge because, in spite of the above, it's not an inherently bad game - just be aware of the points I've made and adjust your expectations accordingly. If, like me, you're a sworn follower of the Dark Souls games, you may be left wanting, but there's surely no harm in picking up The Surge when it inevitably hits that 50% price reduction.

Restarting the mission started me from the beginning of the game and overwrote my save, effectively deleting all my progress.

I'd love to love this game. It could have been spectacular, an immersive puzzler up there with The Talos Principle or Antichamber. Unfortunately what we get is a buggy, atrociously voice acted college project.

The game looks fine (although in dire need of a UE4 upgrade) and runs well enough, but there are numerous small problems which continually break immersion, be it clumsy collision detection, lacklustre puzzles, or awkward attempts at deep symbolism which fall flat of the mark.

A few frustrating design decisions hinder what would otherwise be a notable sequel to the fantastic Hotline Miami. The worst of these forces the player to play levels with certain characters, who impose pointless restrictions on how you can play - examples being characters who don't use guns, or - even worse - only use the one gun their character holds, unable to pick up any others. This inevitably results in the player having to conserve ammo, and forces you to play the level the 'right' way - both tactics which fly in the face of the brawling, free-for-all carnage for which the original was so lauded. Add to this the fact that you can't change these characters - and therefore the restriction placed over the level - and what should be an adrenaline-fuelled carnage fest quickly becomes a tiresome, frustrating chore of constantly redoing the same level over and over again, struggling more against the arbitrary penalty imposed upon you than the hordes of machine gun-toting enemies you're pitted against.

Hotline Miami was a game deserving of a worthy successor, and it's a shame Dennaton decided to mess with their formula in a seemingly thoughtless attempt to 'make the game harder'. There's a thin line between a well balanced, challenging game that punishes you for mistakes you make, and a frustrating, get-shot-by-a-guy-offscreen game that punishes you for mistakes it makes. The original Hotline Miami fell within the former category, but unfortunately the sequel edges towards the latter. Pick up this game if, like me, you loved the original and want more, but wait for a sale.