Recent reviews by Synthotic

RiMe is an incredibly beautiful game that managed to just suck me in. Even though there isn't any dialog, it has a fun and engaging story. In that way, it reminds me of ABZU.

The game has puzzles, but they are always easy enough that I never got frustrated and was able to keep a good pace.

My one criticism about the game would be with a certain segment of the story that just frustrated the heck out of me. I can't really say without spoilers. Otherwise, the game is quite good.

An excellent game for fans of Jet Set Radio. There's a fun cell shaded art style, verticality, and fluid movement. Oh, and graffiti. There's enough content to be happy with as is, and the dev's keep adding more.

It's FernGully but you play as one of them Spiderman ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ from Attack On Titan.

When it comes down to it, Fran Bow is a damn good point and click adventure. That said, it's a point and click adventure... and because of that I'd be lying if I didn't say that I think part of the draw of this game is a nostalgic one. If the genre isn't your thing, you probably won't like Fran Bow. But, if you can at least tolerate point and click adventures you'll probably get a kick out of this game given that you pay the right price.

The best thing about the game is probably the art style. The whole game just feels so lovingly hand crafted and the art is executed in just the right ways to build atmosphere. It really helps hit home the feeling of hopelessness involved with Fran's mental hardships. The story is enjoyable, but I would say the experience is far more reliant upon aesthetics above everything else. The story uses a lot of common tropes and in some way feels a bit cliche for the type of story it is. I'm not to say there's anything wrong with that, but it's just something you should probably know going in.

The one other thing I'd say is I ended up having to use a walkthrough a few times to solve puzzles. I wouldn't necessarily say that the puzzles are "hard", I think it was more of the case of me forgetting how to think in that "point and click mindset". There were a few times where a solution would involve doing something where I would think to myself "Huh, I didn't think the game would let me do that."

It's not every day that I have a work of art move me as much as this experience just did. In my personal opinion The Beginners Guide is an absolute masterpiece. It's a game that will stick in my mind and keep sucking me back to thinking about it time and time again.

First off, the story is fantastic. What makes the game so powerful is the fact that the narrative touches on so many emotionally powerful topics that get woven into a grander theme of depression. This game doesn't shy away from offering emotional introspection and even goes into ideas like loneliness, self destructive tendencies, and even projecting one's emotions onto other people. In a way, I think it even touches on what it is like to suffer from "hyper empathy". It's a crazy feel trip that hits all the right buttons to get you thinking about some pretty heavy stuff.

But what's more is the fact is the entire experience is just so lovingly intertwined with the narrative. There's many points where the game's simple mechanics just seem to connect with the emotions of the story and allow me to feel connected to the experience in a much more profound way. At times I could feel the frustration being conveyed through the story in the game through the mechanics, while other times the mechanics mirrored feelings of peace or relief. The game uses this act of mirroring the narrative with gameplay and sprinkles in some exceptional audio design to build an intense atmosphere that can honestly even be described as overwhelming at times. It almost seems as if the creators went out of their way to use the concept of "kinesthetic projection" to draw me further into the game.

In the end, I can't recommend this game enough. Something as outright breathtaking as The Beginner's Guide needs to be supported with as much love as the gaming community is able to give. I love this thing so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ much and I'm not going to forget it for a LONG time.

The perfect game for people that are single on Valentine's Day! The best description I've heard for this game is:"It's Kerbal Space Program for psychopaths."

Remember when AAA titles could pull off being scary? Well, those times are back with possibly the most criminally under celebrated game this year. "Alien: Isolation" demonstrates a huge risk taken by Creative Assembly, as it's a game that's unwilling to comprimise its core experience to grab a larger audience. Sure, CA recenently patched in an easier difficulty mode, but it wasn't at the cost of anything... in fact, they accompanied it with a new harder difficulty as well. Hell, the game even recomends you play on hard mode. Enough about this games values tough, you're probably want to hear about gameplay... right?

First off and foremost Alien Isolation is about survival. You can't kill the Alien, you can only temporarily scare it off or distract it at best. The threats you can kill, like the looters and malfunctioning androids found on Sevastopol Station, are often better left alone because any of the sounds accompanying conflict can draw the almost ever-present Alien out of hiding to ruin your day. As a result, stealth is a huge part of the game. There's a robust peeking system that allows you to look arround cover with ease while staying concealed, places to hide (like lockers), and gadgets you can craft out of the scraps you find laying arround. Although you have a good array of tools, you should never get too confident... as the Alien can easily get to any place you hide and supplies are finite. It's also worth mentioning that saving is done through save points, which adds a geat deal of tension yet bestows an amazing feeling of accomplishment when you get passed hard sequences and make it to a treasured save point.

More importantly, the Alien AI is brilliant. It's unpredictable outside of scripted events and it actually feels like a real life predator hunting you. It's great at luring you into a false sense of security and then snatching you into a vent when you least expect it, and even adapts to your actions on the harder difficulties. Although you have a motion tracker, it too can draw you into false feelings of security because the Alien moves damn fast and at times it isn't afraid to dash through it's patrol paterns (which is terrifying!)

Overall the game nails Alien perfectly... the aesthetics, the execution, the atmosphere. Alien: Isolation raises the bar so high for the Alien franchise that's it's not just a good Alien game, it's a damn good survival horror game and is easily the best Alien game ever made by a large margin. It's the game Alien fans have been dreaming of for years. The only potential downfall is that it's about a fifteen hour experience depending on your pace of play, which might be a little content light for some people.