Transient (PC) Review

When the dice called up this game, I had no idea what I was getting into, but the concept intrigued me. Turns out it was for good reason: it's been a while since a developer got the concept of Lovecraft quite this well... come on in.

Alone in the Dark 1 (PC) Review

This has been yet another franchise I have been waiting way too long to get into it, if not without good reason. To be honest, I am known for hating tank controls. Seriously, if a game uses fixed cameras and pushing up on the controls made your character go in the direction they are facing rather then up or away from the camera, I bowed out. But I always had an interest in this franchise despite that. It's direct connection to the works of H.P. Lovecraft always made it stand out to me, so when a remake of the original was announced, I decided that was the sign to start moving through the franchise. So I took the time to start my adventures with Edward Carnby.

Now before we begin, this entry surprised me by the fact that it did not ship alone. When I fist loaded it up, I was offered a menu with two games: Alone in the Dark and Jack in the Dark, requiring me to split this review between them. To this end, the links below will let you jump directly to the one you want ot read, but the bugs and final score will before the whole package, not just one game.  

• Alone in the Dark
• Jack in the Dark

Necrophosis (PC) Review

I have been waiting a while for this one. Earlier this year Dragonis Games dropped a demo to show off what they were working on, and I was instantly hooked. So I put the game on my wishlist, eager to get to the main game. Now as the game has been out for a little while, my schedual around game series has opened up to let me pop this into my PC. And while it was shorter and perhaps easier then I would have liked, overall it did not disappoint. Where it mattered, this game delivered.

The Shore (PC) Review

This is not a game that waited very long to play. Having picked it up on the Steam Summer sale, I had expected to put it aside for a lot longer. But instead thanks to another weekend game to show off for Extra Life, it jumped the line and I finished it in a single sitting. It's not a long game, but it was a long stream... I just couldn't let it go as I absolutely had a blast the entire time.

Coldside (PC) Review

When I saw the trailer for this game, it had my attention. When I read further to find out it was inspired by the SCP project, I threw it on my wishlist in Steam. And last year as part of the winter sale, I picked it up for my backlog. And like The Old Man, it refused to stay contained for too long. And also like that creature, encountering it at first had me nervous that I had made a terrible mistake considering it doesn't have a real title screen (why there is no title picture for this review) and the menu's language selection using non-English characters. But unlike that particular SCP, this first impression proved very incorrect and I'm happy it visited my gaming time.

Scorn (PC) Review

It's been at least 6 years since I saw this game in a trailer for the first time, promising a world that would fit into the Aliens franchise without missing a beat and promising to do so ominously and uncaringly as anyone who loves that series for the horror side could hope for. This early trailer showed a nice looking world where you would spend more time figuring out what was going on then killing the threats (not that they weren't already there), and I was hooked. But then as the kickstarter ended, the game went quiet.

Fast forward to the last year or so and we all got to see Microsoft pushing this game for their Xbox GamePass, and what has happened to the game since. Graphically this became a real stunner, enough so I actually decided that this was the game I would build a new PC for. After all, an art-piece should be absolutely maxed out. And so I did, picking the game up shortly after release as the first game that machine would play. Now as I finish, I'm not sure I needed to do that (it didn't press the new system half as hard as I thought it would), but the game simply did not disappoint.

Black Mesa (PC) Review

 

 

In 2004, Valve would release one of the biggest hits they every made: Half-Life 2. Not only was it the sequel to their first breakthrough title, but the engine behind it named "Source" was already doing things most modern games of the time could only dream of with muscle skeletons and light sources. But they also listened to a request of their fans to port the then 6 year old original game to this amazing new tech.... maybe just a bit too literally.

Valve's way to grant this wish was to take the maps, models, and graphics from the original game and just push them through the new engine with little effort to take advantage of what could be done, and the results were about as underwhelming as you would expect. But if you can count on the PC gaming community for one thing, it's to take what is and create what they wish out of it and to force a merge between Half-Life and Source to live up to the potential they saw would be no exception. Over the years, this game would be developed, releasing initially as an ever-developing mod for Half-Life 2. But eventually it would evolve into it's own complete remake. And now, after a decade and a half of the kind of love and passion only a fandom can produce, Black Mesa has been finished. And while some complain the game isn't true enough to the original level designs, it definitely hit the nostalgia mark as I played, nailing a lot of the set pieces I remembered playing through myself... maybe even some that would have been better left behind in the past. Step on inside.

Amnesia: Ribirth (PC) Review

 

Once in a while hype gets to all of us. It's part of being a gamer or really a fan of anything. Admittedly I've found it harder and harder these days to get hyped up for games "coming soon" between expected delays, development hell, and watching AAA publishers scrambling for the next alternative cash grab as the loot-box scandal exploded in their collective faces. But even now, there are a few names which will get me excited to see on a new game being released soon, none more so then Frictional Games. So knowing this game was going to be mine, I broke my personal rule and pre-ordered it, starting my play-through the night it became available to download. A week later, I had the game finished, and while I loved it for the most part (this isn't a spoiler, I knew I would likely enjoy this), not everything was perfect. I'm not sure what I think about how this adventure closed in on it's ending(s), but... well let's step inside.

The Last Door: Season 2 (PC) Review

 

It wasn't that long ago we were in this position with the the first part of this title. I still do not know when or why I picked up the first part, but this one was on sale for a deep discount around the time I finished it so it was a no-brainer considering how much I enjoyed it. Now a little over a month later, we have finally reached the end of the story started back then. It's rare I get to a sequel this quickly, but if anything, I would probably recommend playing the two even closer then this. In fact, you should probably play these back-to-back.

The Last Door (PC) Review

I do not remember when I picked this title up. I wish I could say I did and why I had to have it, but I honestly don't know. What I do know is I have a taste for "mess with your head" horror, so when the dice rolled this game among the possible to start, it was one of the more interesting choices int he list. I decided "what the hell" and hit install.

And while the game started slow, it was just a false start... this is a hidden gem for horror fans. Come on inside.

Call of Cthulhu (PC) Review

It was a long time since the stars aligned like this. To say that Lovecraft's mythos should translate well into video games, but somehow never really does it right is an understatement. And yet it makes perfect sense as most such games want to put you head to head with things there is no way in hell a mere mortal human should even understand, much less take down.

Now that is not to say there have not been good or fun games with this theme. From the darkly funny and goofy Cthulhu Saves the World to the extremely tense, challenging, and (at least till the end) perfectly fitting the hopelessness of cosmic horror Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, there is a lot of fun stuff in the genre. But its been over a decade since that last title, and nothing since has really captured the essence of these tales so well, at least that I've played... until now.