Recent reviews by Kadayi

Albeit I completed the game when it first came out. With the release of LIS2 and the LIS prequel I decided I would replay it and nap the outstanding photos in the process. Have to say even a couple of years on the game still stands up remarkably well, and is all the better for a bit of polish. It's a remarkable game, and although I wouldn't say it's in any way perfect it is definitely a memorable experience down to the imaginative nature of the storytelling.

I did have some issues with the game when it came to saving my progress however which was frustrating enough for me to wish I had rewind powers, so I'd recommend playing the game using safe mode and checking yoyr save folder regularly.

48.2 hours and 100% steam achievement later. Worth it? For sure (esp at sale prices). Highly enjoyable experience that hits all the right spots. Certainly not the most demanding of titles in terms of gameplay, but the levels are small and short enough that replays in order to unlock the collectables in freeplay aren't a chore and the general narrative is well done Also the only place outside of the comics themselves you'll see the X-Men mix it up with the Avengers and spiderman.

Does more to push the medium of games by creatively leveraging the notion of interactivity and how it can be subverted than any number of walking simulators.

Very much a case of the emperours new clothes as far a games go. This is an art film masquerading as a game. There's so little to it in terms of meaningful interactivity and it's so short in terms of play-time that it's hard to recommend it versus watching a lets play. Certainly there's a story there, and the art style as used in Chungs earlier 'Gravity Bone' is endearing, but it's a curio at the end of the day.

Shadowrun Returns (7/10)

Just played through the main campaign (Dead man's Switch). Never got into the whole P&P shadowrun thing before, but snapped this and the DLC up during the Steam summer sale, and have to say overall I'm rather impressed, albeit I wasn't expecting much.

Although it heavily treads the usual Cyberpunk tropes, the mix of races adds something to matters and although I generally relied on hacking and hardware to push through the storyline the magical aspects enhanced the experience to some degree.
Play wise it's not long. I took a fancy to playing it yesterday early afternoon and wrapped it up earlier this morning, with a good nights sleep in between (10 hours tops by my reckoning). My main criticism of the principal campaign would really be the near linearity of it. You're basically pushed from pillar to post with very little in the way of deviation or side quests and that pacing felt off given in large part that the beginning of the campaign is an investigation. I wanted to be able to explore Seattle, but the opportunity never really arises versus being pulled by the main narrative.

The game also suffers a bit when it comes to equipment. The upgrade path essentially consists of buying a better X versus any degree of customization and although there are various chem tonics you can take to temporarily boost a characters abilities I never felt the need to sacrifice an equipment slot for one, versus using it to carry a med pack instead.

The combat is very much in the mould of X-Com, but for reasons unexplained even when all the enemies in a level have been defeated you're often seemingly forced to continue to use the point system to get around, which can get rather tedious at times, though thankfully the levels aren't generally too sprawling. In large part I didn't find the combat too troubling on normal, though towards the end the enemy difficulty does ramp up (a resultant of the narrative) and a bit more thought is required in order to effectively combat some of the threats.

Where the game shines most is in the writing, which manages to give you some flexibility in terms of how you 'play' your character tonally. Although I suspect your choices likely don't have any impact in terms of options, it's nice to have that flexibility.

Just finished the final chapter of The Wolf Among Us[, and then restarted the entire thing from chapter one and replayed it through again to try out a few different things and see how it felt as one piece versus over extended time.

I think in large part the exercise proved to me that in the case of TWAU versus The walking Dead that the condensed game-play suited it far better given the nature of the series as a Noirish detective story versus that of the ongoing travails of survivors living through a zombie apocalypse.

Albeit TWAU started off strong with it's opening chapter it suffered somewhat with the staggering of the follow ups given the operators of time frame within the narrative (the entire storyline takes place over a matter of days) and consequently they felt rather disjointed as singular episodes. As a whole though, the experience is much improved and makes for a pretty enjoyable experience, that though it might not quite hit the high bar set by The Walking Dead's excellent first season in terms of the writing is still pretty effective and does a good job in bringing Bill Willinghams characters to life. Here is hoping for a second season.

Minor quibble would be that at least on the 360 controller I found some of the action sequences a tad tricky (for some reason hammering A on the pad is less effective than pressing Q on the keyboard) but nothing too egregious.

Recommended (8/10)

I'd like to give this a sterling review as the premise is great, but as I'm presently stuck on a pretty egregous section where in what was obstensively a puzzle game suddenly transformed into a rhythm game where in one mistake sets you back to the beginning stage of a three tier I'm less inclined to heap praise on it.

The narrative albeit a contrivance is well done and it does a good job of conveying the horrors of WWI as well as dropping lots of interesting historical titbits, but it's let down by some dismal game-play sections where in success is achieved solely through climbing over the corpses of past failures.

A lot of potential, but sadly saddled with an incoherent storyline that often runs counter to events in the game world that demonstrates a lack of consistent directorial overview coupled with way too many repetitive rinse & repeat missions to be considered a must play/classic. Certainly worth playing because of the things it does well, but don't expect to be blown away by it. 7/10

Beautiful game, great mechanics, quality soundtrack but in terms of the journey I'd say it reminds me a bit of FTL in that you need to learn the ropes a bit before it all clicks (though the randomness is thankfully confined to the combat maps).

Much like Dark Souls the game has a singular currency (in this case renown) which you acquire as the result of combat victories as well as the occasionally canny judgement call during the games story line. You can spend renown in one of two ways. Firstly to buy levels for your individual heroes once they have hit a certain number of kills, and secondly you can spend it in the occasional town market you stumble across to buy both food supplies for you caravans as well the odd trinket that a hero can wear to boost their stats/enhance their abilities (though you do find these/can win them in exceptional combat victories).

All well and good, but for the fact that renown is not easily earned until you know what you're doing (and even then it's a finite amount) and all too often you'll find yourself ploughing points into characters who aren't necessarily going to stick the course and will invariably end up buggering off at some point which can be a tad frustrating to say the least in terms of investment. My advice would be to play the game on easy initially to get a feel for the mechanics and the way the story-line unfolds and then once you're happy with that then try normal. Much like FTL the conclusion favours you better if you're coming loaded for bear rather than happy go lucky.

Highly recommended regardless. Very much looking forward to the the next title in the series.

Not a hugely long game (I clocked in around 4 hours), but it possesses a pretty nice aesthetic somewhat akin to the fable games and is an enjoyable enough romp with some occasionally poignant moments. If you enjoy games like Journey or Limbo, then this is probably a game you'll appreciate.