Recent reviews by Catinkontti

Vesipuisto Surina, Vesi on siellä keltaista

Vesipuisto Surina, Porealtaassa muhii kummia (kumma, kumma)

Pissaa vesiliukuriin, hiivasieni nivusiin

Mukaan vaan kaikki paistumaan (paistu-maaaaan), ilosta kaiken irti saa

Surina!

I believe that this is the closest thing we are gonna get to the legendary Freelancer. I can fairly admit that this game is a blast, but not something that I'd call GOTY. During my 60 hours of gameplay I had dozens of hours of fun, but just like in all the other titles of the genre including Freelancer - Everspace 2's charm does not last through all it can provide for I began to feel the winds of grind in between my 40th and 50th hour. Fortunately nothing is forced and I was let to see the ending pretty swift when I began to speedrun the main missions. The trip offered a lot of good, some mediocre and insignificant amount of bad times.

Everspace 2 is as good as its word! The space is wide containing 7 solar systems and each having numerous places to discover and explore. Quite decent main quest taking you through them all and getting introduced with many side characters and side quests to keep you occupied. Random encounters and numerous challenges alone will keep you busy for dozens of hours.

While the game is about space and 3rd person shooting the formula reminds me of the games like Grim Dawn and Diablo. You fight enemies, discover secrets, find treasures, trade for profit and mine minerals - rewards are awesome equipmet like weaponry, hull parts or shield generators to make you more deadly and feared. Weapons have their levels and 5 tiers from normal to legendary, giving different bonuses and attributes. By doing tasks you also collect credits to buy stuff and if you can afford - something which makes you a pilot - new higher class ships and there is a lot of variation to fit in your style of playing. I followed the standard routine always looking for better class fighter, but as proper option would be taking a larger bomber which beats fighters in endurance and amount of equipment but naturally loses in agility and speed. In combat you are also provided several power-ups and unique ship ultimate strike and this should guarantee that most player's find their unique playing style.

It is hard to say something bad about Everspace 2, but I felt that some heavier cutscenes would have made the main characters more lively and less bland also adding visual value to the story as well. The slow frame-by-frame cutscene designs were alright but when >95% of the gameplay is a view from the behind of your ship you might like to know a bit better the guy who is controlling it, not just a static picture of him when speaking. However - this is too minor problem to make any larger argument of, but just to remind you that consider epic space-soap-opera box unchecked! At least the voice-overs do their jobs decently. The sovereignty might also annoy players who seek more realistic and challenging space shooter, but like I said this is more like a Diablo not a space fighter simulator.

I've recently played two fresh, wonderful games of the genre: this one and Chorus and both have their own pros they stand out of and if you are into space adventure you should mark them both as bought. Should they keep you occupied the rest of the summer.

+ gameplay wise a definitive Max Payne experience
+ a lot of different, responsive weapons
+ complicated storyline with twists and turns
+ some cinematic design choices really pay off
+ James McCaffrey (RIP) =(

- atmosphere has nothing on previous Max Paynes
- some of the side characters are purely irritating and flat
- where is the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 'nades and mollys??
- max can dodge a bullet but can't swim (at least outside of cutscenes)
- golden weapons? For Max??

A textbook example of the scenario where something special and unique is traded to the bigger company. Everything becomes more bling, shiny, cinematic etc., but still I find something is missing - that dark, sinister part which made original Max Paynes (1&2) so special. While I find hardly nothing to complain about gameplay excluding lack of grenades, which btw was a big mistake, I occasionally felt more like grinding the game through. There is some twists and turns, but most of the side characters felt more annoying than something you could get fond of. The collectables are nice addition, but camoon - golden weapon parts? Give me a break! It just does not fit for Max and besides they look ugly, but well at least there is something to keep an eye for and they may also add some replayability. The game is fairly easy except the very last mission being a real bullet hell where enemies come with dozens and even on medium the painkillers turned scarce finally leading into conclusion which is rewarding enough and leaves the door open for the sequel. However, it is already confirmed that Max Payne 1 and 2 are being remastered by Remedy right now, so we might get a game which has modern graphics and gameplay combined with the atmosphere which did not exist on this game. I can't wait!

Mixed bag of good and bad. This Souls-SeriousSam-Chivalry-Doom -like blend shows promise first, but then gets really repeative fast, while fighting system is really good and responsive and I can't but love the soundtrack. Although sometimes getting stuck or losing the track where to go or even worse finding the place where death occured can get extremely frustrating and occasionally dying on some random sudden death trap takes a cake when player's blood can just boil. The story is lightweight and did not see anything interesting in collectable lore either and while there is some skill development this is far from roleplaying game. When you get the hang of fighting and blocking you should be satisfied enough to keep playing the game through which takes mere few hours. Very simple game for which you should not waste more than few bucks.

I'd call this Amnesia: The Orthodox version

I'd rather say it should be called a Half of Glass for I was drinking home brew and had drank it on the half way when credits rolled. Well, jokes aside. Bottle is a little, but not that bad tale about drinking, regret and atonement and visuals and tempo of gameplay are well designed and while it is not straightly a remake for that old Bottle (2016) it did have a lot of connections on Bottle: Pilgrim and the way it was presented was a cherry on a cake.

I recommend to buy with Bottle Pilgrim Redux for more wholesome experience!

As a game: the survival horror triumph!
As a remake: homework done, but missed the spot.

1998 was a fine year to be alive. Hardly knew any English and used to be scared of much harmless things than zombies and only way to play the game through was on easiest difficulty with miniguns and rpgs and still having not a clue what was going on due a language barrier. When I got older I was able to find a guide from the internet in my language (Finnish) how to complete the game and few years after that I completed the whole thing without cheats and understanding the story without lose ends.

Thus I can say that I have wiped both Remake and the Original and their difference is not in their excellence for they both are greater than great. However, while graphically and room dimensionally Remake stands out for its benefit, the original wins in storytelling. Practically things are much the same and small changes work and are refreshing, but thing were Remake doesn't success is to create the immersion of parallel stories between the characters and this does not only affect negatively on the uniqueness of different scenarios, but also for replayability. In the original players were attracted to play the both sections A and B at least twice through by switching the order of the characters between sections, but in Remake this is not the case unfortunately and there is less reasons for replays and they even wiped few moments were player was able to impact some of the assets in Scenario B during Scenario A.

I have recently played few Remakes of old games and people use to complain a lot how their childhood is now ruined and bohoo this and that. Of course I could join the choir and talk about more straightforward puzzles, lighter atmosphere and go to pinpoint that Remake is nothing but a lazy, half arsed game which gots nothing on the classic, but I totally let that slide for Remake is a marvelous game all the way from the beginning til' the end. There is always a bright side of these Remakes and that is that we are once again able to enjoy these relics with a new vision, and just like zombies they won't die but raise up once in a while.

If somebody should ask me if I was a fan of Bodur I'd rather say rather yes than no, but I never thought that I'd give a recommendation to get one of the games on full price. The Redress of Mira is truly exceptional game by him not being short and simple title with few beautiful visuals and pretty story, but taking actually few hours to complete. I have a feeling that dev invested a lot for this game and it shows up!

The story is nothing out of unoriginal, but is delivered well enough to keep things interesting. First up Mira, the protagonist is furiously chasing another young lady across the medieval landscape and then story takes a classic rewind sequence and the timeline is set few days before. The story takes place in a feudal fantasy land where rich feast and poor try to survive. The world is filled with mysterious animals not forgetting astonishing landscapes like dreamy valleys and cozy villages, that are the developer's bravura.

I also felt The Redress of Mira much more wholesome experience than a walking sim for the tasks vary a lot from simple walking to platforming, from item finding to object pushing. There is also a couple of spooky parts as well. Among all that you also find books spread out through the game which tell you each character's backgrounds and motive why they are here and while solution is simple it is working good enough and text is comforting even saucy sometimes. Although it might promise even too much the game can offer in the end for somehow the conclusion was rushed and quite mono dimensional, that made me sneer a bit, but on the other hand perhaps we get to see the another part of the tale in some even more upgraded game.

And I say upgraded for The Redress of Mira is already a huge upgrade from dev's past games and I hope that this trend is emerging. It still isn't the jackpot I am eager to see but I lift it all the way up to the second best of the franchise, in the middle of Lucid Cycle and Bottle: Pilgrim Redux, dropping Finding the Soul Orb from the podium.

Martha is Dead is without doubt something that doesn't pop out from every corner - and for a reason because it is one of if not even the most terrifying psychologically challenging game I've played. Through the game the player is pushed to situations and visions that no sane person would like to watch too long. I mean that there is more than a handful of something caught from the worst nightmares and I'm not only talking about how gruesome they are but they stimulate almost too well of human mind which can snap in the wrong position in the most fatal way. Martha is Dead is the most miserable tale of how monstrous one can become if the current environment and the past direct so.

The game takes place in the small villa in Italy's countryside near the end of WW2 where Allies are pushing forth and the country is more or a less in chaos reigned by National Socialists' Germany. Without spoiling too much of the remarkable story I cover the beginning where Guilia find's her twin sister Martha's corpse in the lake and as terrified she is she is also righteous and wants to find out who killed her twin. Nevertheless through fast twists and turns she also becomes anxious and haunted by the happened events and constantly falls deeper and deeper into state where both player and Guilia question what is actually true and what is not.

Thus it is enough to say that the game is story rich and so rich that the layers within form a stack so huge that it is actually meant impossible to make any proper conclusions for protagonist's morals, fate, visions and past are left open. When I completed the game I watched a couple of analysis and I found out that there might be as many theories that there are players. But that much I know that the feelings I had changed from pure pity to utter rage towards the main character - there was a tiny moment I felt that I had to actually close the game, maybe uninstall it for I barely could watch this circus any longer.

Martha is Dead isn't just psychological creep show though because there is some simple, but entertaining learning matter as well. The biggest feature is gorgeous WW2 era camera, which player uses to proceed in their objects but can use it freely to take pictures whenever and wherever they like and these pictures are developed in old fashioned way in a darkroom with thin red light and devices. The procedure is documented in detail from the beginning to the end also underlining the parts where it would take longer in real life. The telegraph is another thing which is used few times and I definitely know better now how to write Morse code if I ever need to. There is also lot of walking in the small but nice looking area and sometimes the game can feel rather a walking sim than a psycological horror/thriller, which it is but the more peaceful parts work as a good variation at least. The icing on the cake is default Italian voice-overs and I do recommend to play it with those and English subtitles to fill the immersion. English voice-over is available option though.

Even when I had played LKA's previous game 'The Town of Light', other controversial game still giving me creeps, Martha is Dead delivered something unforgettable. The most hawk eyed players have even seen some connections between the games. However, I hold no shame of playing this although I would never recommend this to everyone because Martha is Dead is not for everyone. Period. It is an honest, uncensored and merciless ride into twisted and despaired human mind and I can't judge who is going to 'like' it or not, but for me it was dancing in the nonexistent line of sick taste, art and documentary finally making it over the finish line.

If you should start this game, be honest with yourself and listen to your feelings. If any worse vibes emerges take care of yourself, refund the game and hug some of your loved ones.

Here I will leave the ass, friends who pass by can kiss it and give it a thumbs up
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