Parallax Abstraction 最近的评测

Found out about this from Jeremy on the Noclip Crewcast.

A very short, very cheap horror vignette about a dystopian future, where you're trying to hack...something that appears to be suppressing people. Very dark story, but impacts for sure and has a cool aesthetic.

I'd like to recommend this because it looks a lot like Robotron, but done up in a style that's a combination of Amiga demo scene and Jeff Minter. Unfortunately, it only has a demo's worth of content and even though it's not expensive, I think there are other games in a similar price range that offer more.

While it does play like Robotron in some ways, it's much more manic, there are no civilians to rescue (though there is a collectable in each stage) and not every single enemy has to be eliminated to progress. There's a set number of levels and there is no random generation or placement, so they are laid out the same each time. While there is a scoring system, it's minimal and there aren't any online leaderboards or even achievements, though there oddly are trading cards.

It's definitely challenging, but I got through all the levels in less than an hour and other than doing a run where you don't miss any collectables, there's really nothing else to do here.

It's not bad, it's just so light on content that it feels like a demo for a bigger game that doesn't exist. If you want modern Robotron, spend the extra coin on Nex Machina or just wait for one of the times it's on sale for peanuts.

A free, short narrative game told through an XP era instant messenger. Had this installed forever and never got around to it. It seems basic on the surface, but it's very much a choices matter game and teaches a life lesson I wish I knew back in the day. Curious to try the sequels.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If playing this on Windows 10 or newer, achievement/goal completion text as well as the language options won't display. You can fix this by right-clicking the game's executable in FIle Explorer and setting compatibility mode to Windows 7. The dev doesn't seem to be updating it anymore so this workaround is likely permanent.

If someone just told you how this game plays, it would sound super clunky and frustrating. It's like a twin-stick shooter, except all you control is movement and your ship only fires based on what instruments and beats are playing in the level's song. It shouldn't work, but it totally does, though it certainly requires some getting used to. Each song has several difficulty settings but the starting one will be quite challenging until you get some upgrades to your shields and weapons, which are purchased using "wubs" that you pick up in the levels as you play. The kicker is that the upgrades are level specific so you have to power up in each one before you can take on its higher difficulties. Some might call this padding, but I think it's a smart system because different songs benefit from different sets of upgrades earlier on.

The music is all from small, independent artists (at least they were when the game came out) and each gets a little bio on the loading screens, which is really cool. I've added several to my "music to do list" to check out. The game's presentation has a real "90s shareware" vibe and that's not something I say as an insult. Anyone who was playing shareware in that decade probably knows exactly what I mean. From the UI, to the font choices to the pre-rendered enemy animations and background, this feels like it was a deliberate choice. It won't be to everyone's taste, but this is one retro art style you don't see reproduced often and I like seeing it here.

Unfortunately, the game is no longer being updated, so take heed of the note at the top to make it run optimally on your PC, but I did enjoy this. I've completed all 10 levels, but will probably keep this installed to keep chipping away at higher difficulties.

A unique type of point & click adventure, focused on time travel. Full of crazy twists and turns, but it always manages to keep you from getting confused and keeps all the crazy time stuff organized. Has a few logical holes for the sake of storytelling, but I really appreciate how while there are puzzles, they aren't high pressure and there's very minimal moon logic. There is a hint system (more of a nudge system) if you need it, but most of the puzzles can be figured out if you just think on them a bit. You're always provided the information you need and there is no possibility of getting soft locked.

The story is not only about time travel, but about grief, loss, and trying to find and understand what's important in life. The themes it deals with are profound in many ways and really connect you to many of the characters and empathize with them, while giving you something to think about. That's hard to do with games, and this manages to.

The presentation is a major evolution from the previous Adventure Game Studio titles Wadjet Eye has put out. The voice acting is absolutely top notch, with some solid writing backing it. The backgrounds are also all fantastic, though the character art and animation does feel hit and miss sometimes. This is also not a short game. How Long To Best says an average playthrough is 10 hours, though mine took 15 and I certainly never got stuck. Maybe mine was longer because I didn't skip and dialog, I'm not sure.

I haven't played every Wadjet Eye game, but as someone who grew up with point & click games, this has relit the fire I had for this genre and I intend to eventually go through the rest of their catalog, as well as some other well regarded titles in the genre. That's perhaps the greatest compliment I can give this. Highly recommended.

At time of writing, this game does NOT work properly on modern hardware. I've tried this on a desktop PC with a 5800X and a 9070 XT and also on a laptop with a 5800H and a 3060 Mobile. Seemingly at random points in certain levels, the game will go from running fine at 60fps (which its capped at), to suddenly dropping down to the mid 30s or less and also frequently having textures and objects either start rapidly flickering or just disappearing entirely. This is often followed by the visuals freezing, even though you can still hear the audio in the background. There are multiple fixes in the forums, including editing a couple of config file settings, lowering detail from Ultra and also capping the game at 60fps in your video drivers. None of these made any improvements for me.

The developers of the original game and the ones who did this updated release are dead and gone and presumably, no updates are coming. I'm not sure why a title from 2017 has problems running on newer hardware already, but clearly the port was not done well. This should either be patched or removed from sale.

Game is bugged and can't progress past third level because the gun doesn't fire. User fixes didn't work. This should be patched or removed from sale until it can be.

I grabbed this on sale a while ago when it felt like Don't Nod couldn't release anything that didn't at least interest me. This one caught my attention because it was a murder mystery game in Appalachian coal country done in their formula. Despite being in development at two studios for several years, this somehow still managed to feel rushed and unfinished and I just can't recommend it when better options are out there.

This was originally supposed to be a three episode game before losing its publishing deal and then being released as a single package, which feels like it was done out of necessity because even if you take your time, you'll be hard pressed to beat this in more than 6 hours. The characters all seem like they could be interesting, as does the town itself, but everything moves so quickly, you barely have a chance to get to know any of them or get emotionally invested in them. The investigation sections feel like they originally wanted to take another crack at the really interesting "crime recreation" mechanic Don't Nod first had in Remember Me, but it ends up just being scenes where you find all the clues and after that, try different ways of recreating the scene, only one of which is right and which there's no penalty for getting wrong. Just try again. The narrative is very linear and there's only a handful of scenes and environments, most of which don't have much to do in them, even though they do look quite nice.

I'm usually pretty good at sussing out mysteries quickly and I have to admit that I didn't know for sure what was up or who was doing it until a fair bit into the game, though the ultimate bad guy isn't hard to pick out early if you're paying attention. There are "choices matter" moments that will impact how some scenes play out but in the end, you'll always end up at the same binary choice at the end, which only really impacts others rather than yourself.

If you really like the Don't Nod formula, maybe grab this on a deep sale. However, Don't Nod themselves and others besides have done better games than this, which don't feel like they were pushed out not fully baked to try to minimize financial losses.

Like many here have said, I can see the absolute immense potential of this game to be a wonderful fusion of DOOM 2016 and Ghostrunner. The atmosphere and environments are gorgeous and the movement and gunplay and responsive and very satisfying. However, like others have said, there are some technical issues to overcome. The motion blur is obscene in this and absolutely needs to be a toggle in the final game. I also did have stutters and occasional frame drops below 60, even on a 9070 XT with FSR enabled. Not often, but it doesn't take much to disrupt the flow in a game like this.

I also don't like to bring this up, but Reikon Games had to lay off about 80% of their staff about a year ago and as a result, there's a chance this game's being finished with a skeleton crew and if it doesn't sell super well, may not get a lot of post-launch support. I hope that's not the case because I want this to be awesome.

A straight forward point and click adventure played with just the keyboard. Has cyberpunk tone, but isn't explicitly that. More of a haunted house adventure, where you do almost Inception style memory diving to try and figure out your past. Mostly dialogue focused and what puzzles it has are not difficult. This is more based around the narrative and experience. Story is a bad hard to follow, even if you're paying attention, but that's also by design and it's nonetheless quite compelling.