I can run it but at about 2 to 3 FPS. I've got a relatively new iMac which runs most games beautifully. Turning down graphic settings doesn't help. The game looks interesting and somebody put some work into it. They should fix it. I'm givning it 2 stars instead of one because it has potential.
I loved this game for about three weeks, but it got old soon. It's beautifully designed but ultimately frustrating. Though you're encouraged to explore, there are so many difficulties with exploration that I gave up. Almost all game real estate is infested with hostile beasties and it's a really long hard slog getting from one level to the next. I found too many times I'd be getting to the end of a quest, having completed all but the last obstacle, but then at the end I was always faced with not only a super boss, but with him scores of minions who would continue to teleport in until I was ultimately overwhelmed. Better gear (such as I could afford) and continuous practice didn't get me over the hump. This game lacks the sense of exploration and wonder that Skyrim had.
I didn't like this game. Evidently it's trying to mirror Philiip K. Dick's imaginative style and it certainly it has a very novel way of play. Philip K. Dick was an eccentric science fiction writer who unbalanced his mind from excessive drug use. He imagined stepping from one reality into another...which reality was the 'real' one? Was it all in his mind? This game tries to deliver the mind-bending PKD experience to the player but it didn't work with me. Clever, yes, but mind-bending, no. Since the graphic style is ultra cartoonish I was never convinced of either reality. Others might have a different view, but you may like it.
Layers of Fear is not only a fascinating exploration game, it's also a work of art. Every detail contributes to a creepy and pervasive sensation of alienation and dread while preserving artistic coherence and integrity. In other words this game, in my opinion, is an esthetic experience as well an effective invocation of the macabre. You, the point of view character, are insane, and it's only getting worse. You are trying to complete a painting of your beloved, but you keep messing it up. You wander throught the rooms and corridors of this impossible old house while the storm beats relentlessly against the windows. You're looking for some connection to your lost love. I was impressed with how beautifully the house was realized and how it changes its configuration to reflect the confusion in your diseased mind. You can go through a door and turn around and the door is no longer there! At on point times seems to be progressing in reverse direction.
This game has a particular scenario that you follow, while giving the illusion of free will. But of course you don't have free will. Fate controls everything you do and there is no escape. However I found the experience exhilerating. You can't stop trying, exploring those endless creepy corridors and trick rooms trying to find some connection to your lost love. Is there a conclusion, a resolution? You'll just have to find out for yourself.
There are a few rather obscure puzzles, but not many. Mostly it's about atmosphere and suspense. I am impressed witih the artistry and imagination that went into creating this game. In quality of the both esthetics and gaming experience it is far and away better than most other games available in its class.
I love this game. It has a quality that few games have these days, an esthetic simplicity and evocative ambience. You really feel you're exploring on another planet. It presents enough challenges to keep you playing but without the constant tension of a shooter. Basically, you're exploring an alien planet and trying to solve its mysteries. (Or is it Earth after the apocalypse?) The graphics are beautifully rendered.
As a game it's mostly jumping from one platform or rock to another, sometimes over prodigious distances. One review I read suggested that all that platform jumping detracted from pure exploration, but I found the jumping to be essential to making it an interesting game, and not that hard when you get used to it. Well, there was one jump that I had to try about 20 times to get right, but most of the others are fairly easy.
There are no monsters and no shooting, you're pretty much alone and it's easy to fall to your death. There are also some deadly plants that want to impale you if you get too close. The one thing I didn't like was the darkened rooms where you have to use a headlamp and it's very hard to get the lamp pointed in the direction you want. Otherwise the puzzles are simple and intuitive. For some this game may be too minimal and boring, and for others, like me, it presents a wonderful sense of exploration and alien ambience. I wish there were more games like this.
This game has a lot going for it, not the least that you have about 1000 different guns to choose from and lots of interesting tactical sitiuations. As a shooter it's a pretty good one, if all you want to do is shoot and kill things. Well, that's what a shooter's for, isn't it? But I found after while I became bored and frustrated with it.
My main problem was that there's never any rest or respite and no puzzles to solve. You're constantly and viciously attacked everywhere you go, not only by the armed enemies but by the local fauna who are nasty and relentless. In trying to navigate within an area you have to fight off swarms of winged beasts, flying insects, giant worms and huge lumbering crab-like creatures. There's no time to explore or plan your next move. Then there's the way the checkpoints work: your game is saved at frequent checkpoints, so if you die during a session you go back to the last checkpoint; however, if you leave the game and go back you'll find yourself at a major waypoint which may be far away from your last checkpoint and you will have to fight your way back to where you were. All the baddies have respawned, though your goals and progress within a quest have been saved. The third annoyance is purely personal, I just don't like the comic book style of graphics. Somehow the bold outlines of everything ruin the feeling of immersion. All these are my observations and for some players Boerderlands 2 is the perfect game. But be warned: you don't have a lot of time to explore or recoop between battles. It's almost all shooting, all the time.
I really didn't like this game. I have to admit it's cleverly conceived and it played without a hitch on my setup, but there was something crude and simple-minded about the execution of the game world which turned me off. First of al, the world of BioShock Infinite is wildly improbable, a violation of all known laws of physics and technology. Set in a sort of 1911 American universe there are so many contradictions and impossibilities it is difficult to embrace this world, even considering that for video games we always have to bring a large amount of willing suspension of disbelief.
The graphics are crude and cartoonish, the characters are flat, mechanical and one-dimensional. It rather looks like the garish display of a pinball machine. The bright illustrator graphics and improbable physics subvert the necessary feeling of immersion, which I think is necessary for the shooter genre. The historical references and iconography I found not only improbable, but somewhat offensive. Symbolism of American patriotism and revivalist Christianity are distorted and inverted to form the phisosophical basis of this dystopia. Magic, which plays a large role in this game, seems out of place in the ersatz world of 1911. The combat mechanics lack subtlety and are pretty easy on medium setting. Though there are numerous robots in the game, the rest of the characters, the entire population of this city in the clouds, is robotic, soulless.
These are my impressions from playing the game for only several hours. Perhaps after more hours of gameplay I might come to appreciate the refinements of plot, but I have little hope. As in the case of all games, what people like is a very individual thing, and others seem to have liked this game a lot. I am giving only my personal impresion. I'm just saying that at least one veteran gamer found this game boring, slightly repulsive and definitely non-immersive. Individual experience may differ.
It's hard to write a review of a game which somebody might like a lot and somebody else might find boring or tedious. And since I only got a little way through the game I may not be the best judge, but here it is: The first few rooms were spooky but didn't present much challenge.
I enjoyed gathering the necessary items but when I got the the next part, the scene in the jagged forest, I ran into difficulty. You're given a torch to light your way through the impenatrable darkness but the torch only stays lit for a few seconds. Then you have to find another torch to light it with, meanwhile if you take a wrong turn you're confronted with the scream of the ghost child or you fall off the edge into a pit and die. There's a collapsed wooden bridge you have to find your way across, and again you keep falling off or coming face to face with the ghost. The ghost girl is scary the first couple of times you meet her, but after about 20 confrontations it just gets boring. It's so dark, even with the brightness turned up, that just don't know where you're going. You have to keep going over and over your route to make progress when you keep getting dumped back at the last save point. The gameplay is very linear, just the opposite of an open world. There's only one way you can go, any other leads to death.
Yes, I'm complaining that it's hard...and for some players this kind of puzzle is fun, but for me it was just to repetitive and lacking in any sense of orientation or visual complexity to be fun exploring. I just had to give up...too much wandering blindly in the dark, too minimalist, not enough discovery, little sense of progress. Not really scary, just frustrating. I generally like solving puzzles but I also like to feel I'm in a real place with multiple possibilities. Solving these puzzles just seems too much like work.
I loved this game. It's pure exploration. You're a young woman who comes back from a European vacation to find her Parent's spacious, spooky mansion deserted. Where are her parents, and where is her little sister? You explore the deserted house with its many rooms and gather clues to find out what happened to your family. You read letters and notes and play tapes and graudually you begin to understand what's going on. I have played all kinds of games, RPGs, shooters and simulations and the aspect I like best about most games is exploration. This game is pure exploration, no shooting, no monsters, just finding the clues and piecing the story together.
It's all over too soon. My only complaint is the game is too short, though just the right length for the kind of story it is. They should really make more games like this, though in this case perhaps it tells us a little more about the secret lives of teenage girls than we wanted to know. Maybe a larger package of episodes or chapters where various stories and various locations can be explored. But Gone Home was certainly worth the price of admission.
My major gripe with this game is that there are no written instructions on how to use the interface. So as a beginner I'm left to trying random key combinations to try to get a result.
Then there were the constant cutscenes; I felt I was always being interrupted in my explorations. The landscape does not appear contiguous, the player is always being snatched away and put in a different location.
At the point I left the game I had been transported to a sort of crypt and had to face a boss, but the weapons I had were inadequate to defeat him. There was nowhere to turn for any hints and I couldn't escape the crypt. Perhaps if I spent a great deal of time on the internet looking for walkthroughs or forum posts that would help me find my way. But at that point I gave up on the game.
Buy with confidence! MacGameStore / WinGameStore is an authorized retailer of digital products through relations with 1000+ publishers & developers. No gray-market worries here!
Doing business for decades Originally began by shipping games in the 90s. Much has changed over the decades, and getting games into the hands of Mac & PC gamers is still our focus!
Mac Game Store
0
