Not For Broadcast
I never write reviews, however I had quite a few thoughts on this one. I hope the devs can read and maybe respond.
I really recommend this game, even if you don’t think you are interested in the genre. It’s just the right amount of challenge for me, the actors are personable, funny, and similar to real life, and there are many realistic features. I also like the fact that you can replay any past broadcast you’ve done as if you are a viewer, and it’s satisfying to pull off some great shots. I also like the political side of the game, and the amount little details are crazy (e.g. what people say off shot in the ‘rushes’, which are the four camera feeds you can choose from to broadcast)
– Real player with 14.5 hrs in game
I really enjoy this game’s mechanics and pace. However there are some issues with the content that make playing it kind of a bummer.
The narrative’s reliance on hacky, sometimes offensive comedy tropes weakens what could be a really groundbreaking experience. I think these tropes also hinder the game’s message, so far as one can be discerned (as the game tends toward ridiculing whoever it can). In the first three game segments, we have:
1. A group of stereotypical theater kids. Included are a preening, flamboyant young man, a vapid, self-obsessed blonde, an over-eager social justice warrior type, and an intellectually disabled young man whose inability to navigate a sleeve is played for cheap laughs.
– Real player with 12.8 hrs in game
VirtuaVerse
Virtuaverse
A beautiful retro aesthetic is all this game has to offer for modern adventurers. If you’re happy with a bland story and no character development but enjoy that bygone feel then this might interest you.
First Impressions🤔
Virtuaverse visually impresses and it is apparent that a lot of work has gone into making this game look and feel as retro as possible. Characters, environments and objects are rendered superbly and it always amazes me how beautiful a pixel world can look if it is done right.
– Real player with 20.4 hrs in game
VirtuaVerse is clearly a love letter to point & click adventure games of the 90’s, not only in its engine, animations, and interface, but also in some of its puzzle design. The pixel art is a masterpiece, the soundtrack is memorable, and the adventure is captivating. However, the price of fidelity brings with it some of the elements that made old games frustrating, such as lazy direction, useless inventory items, pixel hunts, and baffling riddles that are sure to prevent completion in one session. Thus, it’s difficult to accurately appraise VirtuaVerse as a yes/no recommendation, because it largely depends on your threshold for games that don’t lead you by the hand.
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals
A decent game for fans of the Enki Bilal’s Nikopol trilogy, and his works in general. But ONLY for the fans or people at least knowing either the graphic novels or eventually the film “Immortel (ad vitam)” (the best - both; the movie is/or was free to watch on YT). I think that only then the player can appreciate the content by entering this dark future sci-fi, enjoying original designs and nice pieces of Bilal’s characteristic graphics from the trilogy.
People not knowing what the Nikopol trilogy is about - should be very careful about the title. I suppose those are majority of the negative reviews here. You will just not get the point here - like it or not, but this particular game can be only treated as an extension to those other works. There are many unexplained references to those, so you would probably miss half of joy.
– Real player with 8.1 hrs in game
It’s unclear whether something important is either lost in translation, or just expected to be found in sources outside of the content of the game, but either way, the events in Nikopol feel like a drug trip; nothing that happens ever seems to make much sense, and everybody who inhabits its world operates on some inscrutible, Lynchian-esque, fever-dream logic that never reveals itself to the player over the course of the game.
To further complicate things, the game’s frequently frustrating and obtuse puzzles are presented—visually and mechanically—in a manner that would have seemed quaint in a game 10 years its senior; as difficult as it may be to tell at face value, Nikopol was released contemporaneously with titles like Dead Space, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2 and Mirror’s Edge, just to name a few.
– Real player with 7.7 hrs in game
Alternativa
You’re classic point&click adventure game with a 2.5D aspect.
As a whole, the story is good, but not great. It felt more like a prototype concept game than a complete game. Some puzzles can be a little challenging if you happen to miss something in particular.
The game and story starts out to be intriguing and feels like there is a lot of content and story to explore.
As the game gradually progress, the scripts shows signs of weakness. Even the narration goes off beat and weak like if the voice actors lost interest or didn’t care anymore. It feels like the writer was rushed or didn’t know where to go with the story.
– Real player with 16.9 hrs in game
I don’t know what to rate this, honestly. The story is contrived in areas and no one really acts like a real human being but the atmosphere is interesting. They obviously push the story forward by skipping really ‘gaining’ trust to be guided by characters. Regardless, I like it for what it is so far BUT you can technically interact with items before the game deems you allowed and you will receive a false flag like there’s nothing to do there with a comment completely different than when you’ve taken the ‘right’ steps to interact finally. There’s no real way to know you’re looking at something too early, either. On top of this I experienced MULTIPLE crashes per game play. In fact, I took time out from my game crash now to write this. I have to skip the constant train ride cut scenes (that play every time you travel to a new area) just to keep it from crashing and it wouldn’t even start up the first 10 or so times I tried to run the game. It’s a frustrating experience at times and you need to be prepared to deal with that.
– Real player with 11.8 hrs in game
NORCO
NORCO is a sci-fi Southern Gothic Adventure that immerses the player in the sinking suburbs and verdant industrial swamps of Louisiana’s petrochemical hinterlands. Your brother Blake has gone missing in the aftermath of your mother’s death. In the hopes of finding him, you must follow a fugitive security cyborg through the refineries, strip malls, and drainage ditches of suburban New Orleans.
Immerse yourself in an uncanny and surreal South Louisiana
NORCO features detail-rich and atmospheric pixel art born from the natural and industrial landscapes of South Louisiana, accompanied by the eclectic soundscapes of composer Gewgawly I.
Meet strange, unforgettable, and dangerous characters
Navigate your way through a world of uncertainty and moral ambiguity as you venture deeper into the swamp to unravel the threads left by your brother. Fight, sneak, or fast-talk your way past any hometown bullies, security contractors, or death cults that stand in your way.
Explore vast scenic landscapes of pulsing nightlife and eerie solitude
Skulk through the crowds of downtown New Orleans, recruit a wild-eyed river dog, break into a refinery, boat through cypress swamps, and explore the desolate batture woods of the Mississippi River.
Discover a world haunted by both past and future
From Southern Gothic literature to adventure game classics to experimental indies, NORCO fuses its wide sources of inspiration into something new and unseen.
NVC: That’s when your dreams began?
Catherine: Yes. Towers falling from the sky. I’d stay awake just to avoid them.
NVC: You say here that they lasted for years.
Catherine: I worry that I somehow passed them onto Kay. She’d have nightmares of cell tower lights. She said they grew closer every night.
NVC: Have you told anyone about these dreams?
Catherine: No.
NVC: And tell me about the robot.
Catherine: Million?
NVC: That’s right.
Catherine: She came to me in the parking lot when Kay was twelve or so. She knew Blue from his days at the refinery. I stared for a long time into her constellation of eyes. They swirled in a kind of desperation. I took her home, knowing it was a mistake.
The Moment of Silence
This is reasonably constructed point and click adventure with some good points but it has some serious flaws that make the price of £14 way too expensive. If you find it on a half price sale it is worth considering.
The premise of this game is that you are a man in New York who, soon after moving into a new apartment, observes a police squad forcefully arresting and abducting his neighbour while his terrified wife amd son look on. In your attempt to support the man’s family you discover all sorts of strange facts that suggest dark and conspiratorial motives for his arrest.
– Real player with 109.2 hrs in game
House of Tales games are basically enhanced movies. They exist for the story alone. They aren’t going to give you lots of puzzles or even lots of inventory items. It’s all about the story. Overclocked was one of the better stories in any adventure game. It had me dying to know what happened next. I’m hopeful this one will do the same.
The guy voicing our hero sounds like the same guy from the Overclocked game. Captain Doom. Everything is wrong all the time. One thing that bugs me is the kid Tommy. Why does he have a German accent while his parents are American? That just seems like a very stupid error to make. Unless he was adopted fairly recently, there’s no reason for that. Takes you out of the game. In fact all of the actors seem to be Germans putting on American accents. It comes out at the strangest times. They range from halfway decent to caricatures of what a German actor would think a New Yorker should sound like. A few of them are almost comical in how bad they are at acting which keeps things interesting.
– Real player with 25.5 hrs in game
The Grim Ending
Excellent story and setting, definitely a must for point and click adventurers!
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
really like the mood of it. i love that small studios like you guys make games like that. keep it up and cant wait for more to come!
btw the music when you pull out the scythe made my day lol.
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
Wait! Life is beautiful!
I recently bought and completed this 4 times for all achievements and honestly I really can’t recommend this game. Choices don’t matter, even if you save everyone possible you still get hate mail from the people who jumped, and even if you let all 36 people jump you still receive money from the people you saved and their families. There are a few typos I saw, and they call everyone him, even the ones that are obviously women. There are also a few glitches, people will just change into someone entirely different sometimes, when they climb on or off the bridge. At one point I was sitting down then my character just slides all across to the other side without getting up. There are 4 endings total, and the two standard endings you get for playing completely through the game are so bland.
– Real player with 23.6 hrs in game
Wait! Life is beautiful!
Wait! Life is beautiful! takes on the subject of suicide. A daring subject matter to express, explain, and handle, and I must say I admire this game for trying to cover this surreal subject.
You play as Will, a hard-working young man with a mundane life. Every day is the same in grueling 9 to 5 job with constant repetitive phone calls from clients. The day ends with a call from the boss about how much money you’ve made for the company.
*– [Real player with 12.9 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198329404521)*
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## Culpa Innata
I was disappointed by this game due to the way the story was laid out. There was a surface mystery to solve, which happens mainly through interviewing people. It was a basic, straightforward murder mystery which the game spends 95% of the time on.
[I'm sorry if the following is a spoiler, but I wish someone in the reviews had put something about this in them. I would not have played it if I knew. }
But more intriguing is a deeper mystery which hints at a whole unknown world outside of the totalitarian world the character is a part of. The game barely opens up that world to you and that is it. The murder mystery is suddenly solved and the game is over. You never find out what the true nature of the Union is.
*– [Real player with 31.6 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198043335731)*
This is a great first part of what should have been a series.
Culpa Innata is set in the near future in a society that most of us would find very alien. The main character is an officer given the task of investigating a murder which is an event so rare in this world that everyone doen't really know how to start.
The best thing about this game is the detail of the setting. 'The World Union' where the main character lives and works is a society different to any of our own. In the game you not only carry out your investigation but interact with friends and colleagues to get a proper feel of what being in such a society might be like. There's also a lot of reference to the countries not absorbed by this society and how things are different. The writers have done an excellent job of giving a richly detailed picture of this world.
*– [Real player with 29.7 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198012622954)*
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## Neofeud
A flawed game, but one worth your time.
So full disclosure, I’m quite fond of the creator of this game, Christian Miller and watch his streams from time to time. I will attempt to be as objective as possible and I’m going to cover aspects I like and those I do not in the hopes of providing constructive criticism. I cannot rule out that some bias may influence my review, so take that with a pinch of salt.
As a cyberpunk point and click adventure game, Neofeud appeals to a niche audience and it’s this audience I am addressing. I will be using comparisons to other games quite frequently to help my review. I’ve completed the game through five times now, created a Walkthrough and waited until I had every achievement (aside from two which appear glitched for me) before writing this, to ensure I had a thorough understanding of the game, its mechanics, its themes and its message.
*– [Real player with 47.5 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198028012225)*
This game is a fascinating tour de force that is all the more impressive knowing everything except some of the voice acting was made by one person. A blend of classic cyberpunk sensibilities a la William Gibson and Richard K. Morgan, combined with present-day relevance, it is a game that surpasses pure entertainment into the realm of art, and really needs to be experienced. Neofeud innovates on the sci-fi genre in the way that Neil Blomkamp flipped staple and tired tropes of the genre in District 9 in order to explore the encroaching future of a world stricken with climate change and war-fueled mass migrations. Neofeud examines a Bladerunner-esque reality in which manufactured conscious organisms are produced in hypercorporatized megacities, but in a much more realistic and complex way.
*– [Real player with 15.1 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198131311704)*
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