Minimalist, Bleak, Time-Travelling Story About The End Of The World
The Silent Age is an interesting and somewhat original game that I thoroughly enjoyed. It has a very minimalist graphical design and a stark, electronic soundtrack, both of which give the game a foreboding, eerie feel. This perfectly matches the concept of the story, which is the imminent end of the world. I know, heavy right?
The game has an extra twist: time travel. Its use here is a particularly interesting concept that you'll need to solve puzzles and advance the plot, and I think it's pretty cleverly done here. I'll avoid giving out specific examples, 'cause then I'll just ruin the fun for you.
The Silent Age is not a long game. There are eleven chapters in total, some of which are quite small and not particularly difficult, so you shouldn't take much more than a weekend of relaxed playing to complete it. If I had shelled out more cash for the game I would have criticised its short duration, however the length pretty much matches the price, so I can't really complain.
I gave this game a full five stars, because the atmosphere and overall narrative were well done, the concepts were well cleverly implemented, the simplistic graphics actually added to the ambience, and the game duration matched the price tag .
The Name Of The Rose, anyone? No? It's a book by Umberto Eco. A particularly entertaining one, too. The Abbey reminds me of it. A lot.
Oh, you've read The Name Of The Rose, and you enjoyed it? And you like point-and-click adventure games with murder mysteries? Well then, this game has your name written all over it. Buy it. Buy it now.
The Abbey is basically a religious-themed whodunnit mystery. I think it's a pretty good one, too. The storyline in particular was well done, and the characterisation is superb; by the end I was starting to get a good feel of the personalities of all the characters inhabiting the place, and really got into the mystery as it unfolded. There was even a particularly tense scene that had me a little anxious. Pretty surprising for a point-and-click game!
The main criticism I had was the puzzles; some of them were a little illogical, and when the dialogue doesn't prompt you with clues it occasionally starts to descend into that point-and-click hell, where you just wander around clicking things randomly and trying your items on every active node until you accidentally stumble on the right thing to do. Didn't happen too often, but it happened enough to get a little annoying.
Otherwise, 'twas fun! I'm glad I don't live in an abbey in the Middle Ages, though. People apparently get murdered.
Anna's Quest is okay. It doesn't have the comedy or personality of the Deponia series in my opinion, but it's certainly a nice little story that starts to gain some depth by the final chapter. It definitely held my interest, but I'm a fan of these point-and-click adventure games. The telekinesis bit is a nice twist, too.
The visuals look quite cartoony, which I guess matches the style of the game, but are nothing too spectacular. Some games I occasionally find myself sitting back and enjoying the beauty and/or originality of the illustrations. Not this one. It's pretty much stock standard stuff.
Depending on how puzzle-adept you are, you're probably looking at a lifespan of maybe 5-8 hours of gameplay. I got stuck once, but most things are generally pretty logical. I finished the game in a weekend of sporadic playing (a couple of hours here and there over two days).
The voice of Anna was a little irritating to me, which is a pity because, as the main character, she has most of the dialogue. I also note some of the more unusual words in the game were mispronounced a lot depending on which actors were hired. For example "wyrd" was pronounced either like "word" or "weird". Not a big issue, but distracting.
All in all, Anna's Quest won't win the adventure game of the year award, but it definitely falls squarely within that nice safe mid-range area of quality. And that's ok by me. Because I bought it on discount.
I played the first act way back when, and loved it. Every bit of it: the premise, the visuals, the characters, the humour. Both characters were reasonably complex with relateable problems, and their worlds developed interesting dilemmas. I cared about what was going on and what would happen to Shay and Vella.
I cared so much, in fact, that I struggled to wait patiently for the second act to emerge so that I could resolve the tense and mind-boggling cliffhanger in which I found myself.
The second act was released, and, with all the excitement of the world in my mind, I played the game again to subdue my turbulent imagination and find out what happened to my beloved characters.
And... meh. Perhaps there was too much build up? Perhaps I'd been waiting so long that I made up my own ending?
Don't mistake me, the second age is entertaining. But it's just not... there. The story starts to get a little too implausible and ridiculous, and changes are made to the narrative that fundamentally affect how you see the first act. In my view, this ruins much of what made the first act good, and I felt a little robbed of my initial pleasure. Also, some of the characters' motivations start to fall apart a bit, and the ending feels like it's full of holes.
Three stars. Three stars because the first act was captivating. And three stars, because the second act was not.
Just Forget SimCity Ever Existed, And Go Straight To Cities: Skylines
If you're looking for a decent city builder and feeling a little sore from EA's pathetic attempt to rid you of your hard earned dosh with SimCity, look no further than Cities: Skylines. Those clever kiddies over in Finland (Colossal Order) have managed to outshine EA with a vastly superior product and a little bit of common marketing sense, such as listening to what the buyers wanted, rather than telling them.
Cities: Skylines looks good and took less than half an hour for me to master the UI. Now, after several hours of planning and building, I catch myself just watching a busy intersection and clicking on all my little citizens to see what they're up to and where they're going.
Other good features: the transport interface is dead easy and great fun (but I wouldn't have expected any less from Colossal Order with their "Cities In Motion" expertise), each citizen behaves like a relatively normal person, the simulation is the closest any game has come thus far to being a real city, and the water physics are truly extraordinary. I love how they've included noise pollution as a feature too.
There are a couple of elements that knock off one star, but they're pretty small: no day/night cycle or weather patterns, a relatively small diversity of buildings (but excellent mod support), and tiny farms, for example.
Also, I was hoping for more control over height restrictions. As it is, there is low and high density, but low density can get pretty dense, and would probably be equivalent to a grouping of low and medium density in SimCity 4. For example, if you want to create a suburb of just houses you'll probably have to deny them services to prevent them from levelling up. Also, even with a city of 15 000 one can get skyscrapers, which seems a little ridiculous to me.
I was also hoping for greater freedom in creating parks. You can create square parks in the assets section, but it would've been more creative to just plonk down benches, paths, play equipment and other items on a patch of green right in the game itself.
Overall, despite the relatively minor drawbacks (and you'll never please everyone with a city builder) this is a remarkable step forward in the city-building genre, and it's awesome fun. Well done Colossal Order. I tip my hat to you.
Pretty and immersive, but let down by substantial flaws
Tengami has several merits that you'll probably enjoy - it is without a doubt stunningly beautiful in a serene way, and it cleverly showcases the central Japanese theme with its artistic style, music and of course the intriguing origami-style mini-world and gameplay.
The paper-folding aspect of this game in particular held my interest, simply because it's fairly innovative and freshens up what would otherwise have been a fairly average puzzler.
There are several criticisms, which knocked off two stars for me. The first is that Tengami can get a little tedious, as the little samurai avatar is unable to run. Maybe he's got arthritic knees or somethin'. Don't get me wrong, there's no problem with a casual stroll when you first enter an area and you're admiring its beauty, but after a period of back-and-forth problem solving you'll probably find yourself wishing the little guy would pick up the pace a little.
The second (and more serious) criticism is that this game is too short and too easy. In fact, it annoyingly ended just as the problems became a little more interesting and challenging. I'd say I wouldn't have spent more than two hours total on the whole game, and the only puzzle that actually required a little thought (and therefore felt rewarding to have solved it) was right at the end. For ten bucks, which is what I paid for Tengami, I can buy a puzzler with far more gaming-hours and challenges.
There's also no back story or apparent motivation for doing anything. Hey, I get it, though - it's enigmatic and poignant. I'm cool with that. Limbo got away with it, and so does Tengami.
In summary, you'll be paying for an admittedly pretty and original Japanese-themed game, that will probably only be mildly challenging and will therefore likely end too quickly for you. If you're not into Japanese-themed stuff or if you're a hardcore competitive puzzling genius looking for a challenge, then move along. There's ain't nuthin' ta see here.
The graphic style is nice, and the peppering of humour throughout the dialogue is certainly entertaining. There is, however, one fatal flaw that prevents me from enjoying this game: it's buggy.
I'm getting a bit sick of downloading games that crash and quit, and this one does so at several points, thoroughly ruining the adventure.
Daedalic Entertainment, I hope you read this. Your game needs more work - I paid forty bucks for this 'trash', and I expected something more than a beta.
I was going to write a review, but then I realised that everything I wanted to say has been expressed by PilarS.
It's a moderately entertaining game, but the tutorial is really deceptive - single player options are limited to defence only and they ain't much of a challenge; it takes less than an hour to master all three single player maps.
I give it three stars, but that's only because it doesn't cost much, so I shouldn't expect much.
What an awesome game - I'm loving the attention to detail and realism, especially with the disappointing lack of features in the new SimCity.
Map sizes are generous and once you work out the interface you'll be challenged to design and implement a sprawling mass transit system. I've only just started to scratch the surface but I'm finding this game a pure joy to get immersed in.
For anyone who's tired of the relentless monotony of first person shooters and ultraviolent war games, this game is an intelligent and creative alternative for anyone with an interest in civic planning and an attention span greater than a canary.
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