Recent reviews by Nudist Squid

The Last Station is a tense, atmosphere, often confusing but always compelling game.

You play as a silent train conductor, leading passengers to different shelters in a grey post apocalyptic setting, the gameplay is split into two parts.

The first part, and what's the meat of the game, are the on foot sections where you explore different areas for supplies and to find more survivors, while fighting off enemies that could be zombies or aliens or something else (they also look like older versions of the main character from Limbo). There's only three weapons total in this game (and one you don't get till near the end), pistol, shotgun and machine gun. All of em pack a decent punch and feel good to use, but ammos limited, though you had have a weaker melee attack.

These areas have an eerie loneliness to em, with most buildings being abandoned beyond the occasional corpse. There's also a nice tense element since all of the areas are darkened until you open the door, and surprise attacks from enemies are quite common, so you always enter each area with at least a bit of trepidation. You also can find logs and notes that give more hints on what happened exactly, though if i'm being honest I still couldn't fully explain the games plot to you. Everything is presented as crypticly as possible, and any answers you do get just raise further questions, it's def interesting, and probably meant to let you draw your own conclusions but wish maybe there was a little more focus to it.

The second main part of the game are the train sections as you travel from area to area. Here you have to take care of your passengers, feeding them and providing medicine so they don't die, in addition to maintaining the train, which are presented through minigames. You can also email your fellow conductors, which is the only time your character actually speaks in game. Your passengers talk amongst themselves, giving more clues about the world, though you'll often have to miss em cause you'll be busy with other matters. I actually kind of dig it in a way, it feels more authentic, like you're overhearing snatches of a conversation as you work, but it'll def be frustrating for many that you can't listen in without consequence.

Soundtrack is appropriately minimalistic, but sets the tone well, the sprite work is excellent, very fluid, with the enemies having a jerky quality to their movements that make them legit unverving and sets them apart well from the human cast.

Overall, if you like games with a creepy atmosphere and go into it knowing you'll likely not fully understand the plot, at least at first, I'd say it's worth checking out.

Super fun (if often frustrating af) platformer. When I was playing through it was I like "man this reminds me so much of Rayman Origins" (which is one of my favorite platformers ever) so finding out it was directed by one of the main designers behind Origins made so much sense. I also really love the games aesthetic, which makes it look like a lost early 2000s Nicktoon. But yeah, it's a tight, fun platformer that seemed to get overlooked last year and I'd recommend it.

this is easily the best Nightcrawler game ever made, it makes you feel like a complete badass and it lasts as long as it needs to before getting old. Would super recommend it

This is pretty much a converstation simiulator, and I don't mean that as a bad thing. To me this title, along with Oxenfree demonstrates that with good writing and enough player involvement, you can make a compelling game out of just two people talking. Everyone you talk to on the train has a memorable personality, from a bot that speaks in flowery decelerations of love, to a corporate bot who tries to tie every convo to the product he's shilling.

It lasts exactly as long as it needs to be, is priced appropriately and the ending leaves a massive impact. It genuiely made me think, and will stay with me for a good while. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a nice, short offbeat sci fi story.