Wildfire
I’ll try to be as concise as possible, but I’m a long winded individual so…here goes!
First of all, I absolutely love this game. The art style, animation, gameplay, replay, and humor is just amazing. This is probably my favorite game this year and I think the first game I’ve gotten all the achievements on in a long time. It’s got it’s fair share of flaws, but nothing that completely breaks the enjoyment of the game.
Pros:
Graphically, the game is beautiful. Big fan of pixel art, the animation is key in pixel art. With very few pixels to represent a character or world, the only thing that separates the generic pixel art and a living world is animation and this game has it.
– Real player with 51.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Immersive Sim Puzzle Platformer Games.
I played the demo and that was pretty fun, it kinda sold me on wanting to get the full version ASAP…even though I was already pretty set on wanting to get it since it’s initial announcements because of its various innovations with the elemental mechanics.
As much as I enjoyed the demo though, it was a fairly condensed experience designed to give you a small taste of each of the elements that you get to work with throughout the game and only lasts a couple of hours. At the time of me writing this review, with the full version of the game (which I found heavily discounted ~ what a lovely surprise that was) I’m at just under 40 hours and about to start level 21 (Mountains 6). I’m not sure how many levels there are overall (I could look it up I’m not one to spoil these types of details for myself lol), but when looking at the game map I’m in the upper right section…about to leave the mountains, so I still have quite a bit to go it seems, which is awesome.
– Real player with 39.3 hrs in game
Filcher
Never played thief. I come from a childhood of Splinter Cell. At first I didn’t like it due to the weird mechanics like 2D sprite enemies and lack of a sound meter, lighting that doesn’t exactly look how it acts on the player. But it really does grow on you. A couple missions in and I had got the hang of the game (not to say that it was easy by any means). I love old-school stealth games that are super hard and I’m glad to say I ended up enjoying it. The story is pretty good too, even though it’s decently shallow. I hope to see a sequel at some point.
– Real player with 35.8 hrs in game
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THE GOOD: Did you like Thief? You’ll love Filcher. It’s as simple as that. Long, dark shadows, sharp, moody lights, art-deco style, and film-noir tone, ambient sounds that bring nostalgic tears to your eyes, and Dark Engine-like mechanics that bring a familiar smile to your face.
THE NEUTRAL: Some may find the 2D sprite-based enemies and objects strange, but the atmosphere makes up for it.
THE BAD(ISH): At least the protagonist could have been voiced if nothing else. Because that’s all that’s missing from a complete, 100% experience, some good voice performance for greater immersion. Also, the auto-closing feature of the doors is a pretty questionable design choice for this type of game.
– Real player with 15.8 hrs in game
Skin Deep
Skin Deep is an immersive first-person shooter. We got sneezing. We got things getting stuck in your feet. Stalk through a vast non-linear starship and sneak, subvert, and sabotage to survive in this stellar sandbox. You’re outnumbered, outgunned, and have no shoes.
Welcome to Skin Deep!
A WALKING TALKING INSURANCE POLICY
When insurance corporations want to keep valuables safe, they freeze you and stow you onto their cargo starships.
And when space pirates board the starship and trip the silent alarm, you unthaw, take a deep breath, and handle the situation.
Good luck, operative.
AND MORE…
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Add Skin Deep to your Steam wishlist to get a notification when the game is released. Click the Add to your wishlist button above.
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Watch the Skin Deep development streams at http://twitch.tv/blendogames
Read More: Best Immersive Sim Sandbox Games.
Son.Light.Sleepwalker
This game is something else, in a great/scary way. I was surprised to be presented with full voice acting throughout the game. I was expecting it to be another fnaf clone but this is far from anything that fnaf has shown us. I have noticed very few bugs even though it is still in early access, so that is something you should expect.
I will now go through the pros and cons of this game…
PROS
*Full voice acting
*Engaging storyline
*Great jumpscares
*ONLY 2 DOLLARS!!
*Fantastic Lighting
CONS
*The only con for this game would be that you dont own it yet!! ;)
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Ctrl Alt Ego
You are ego, a disembodied consciousness.
You’ve been downloaded to an evacuated retro-tech space dock where a mind-altering virus has infected the consciousness ctrl stream.
Take ctrl of robots and devices to get around; some are friendly, others not so much.
Explore, grow your ego, find and exploit bugs, install and hack disk programs to upgrade your bug, evade or defeat hostiles.
Adopt a strategic, stealthy approach, or don’t.
Solve puzzles to reach locations of interest, or don’t.
Dig deeper into who you are and why you exist, or don’t.
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15 substantial handcrafted immersive environments
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Sneak, cause mayhem, be a ctrl freak or an egomaniac
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Darkly farcical tale about the future of consciousness
Distinct Features
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There is no ‘player death’ in Ctrl Alt Ego. Your invincible, disembodied ego always lives on. If your current host is toast, pick another and carry on:
(Note: there is a traditional save/load facility too, in case you refuse to accept who you are).
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Once you’ve ctrl’d a robot, it is yours to keep. Amass an army and bring it with you:
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Use robots to get around the old fashioned way, or ‘hop’ from one side of an area to another in a near-instant:
Intravenous
Intravenous is a stealth-based shooter with a top-down view, and I love it because when stealth goes out the window, you can still pull the situation back.
Gameplay-wise, the game is very, very good. Stealth, while not mandatory, is HEAVILY recommended because the combat is absolutely brutal. Generally, the stealth will consist of you trying your damned best to avoid guards, while the combat will be spamming many claymores at your back. The game heavily rewards exploration of the maps with stuff such as gun supplies and vent shafts that can be used to cheat a level. The gameplay loop is very fun, but on the highest difficulty, the game suffers a bit due to removal of gunplay. On the highest difficulty, since everything dies in one shot, low ROF guns become a joke, while high ROF guns become ““meta””.
– Real player with 18.6 hrs in game
A masterpiece of the genre, a twist of early ’00s Splinter Cell style stealth, with a Hotline Miami-esque top down view. Shadow is your only safety when death is but a bullet away.
Punishingly difficult in stealth or full blown combat, your most lethal tools get you killed just as quick as they will your enemies, a poorly timed suppressed gunshot can bring a swarm down upon you, or frags and claymores blast shrapnel far beyond what you expect. Empty magazines, cans, and bottles make great distractions, and a Chaos Theory inspired OCP device lets you knock out lights and cameras. Dancing around your enemies in the dark is difficult, but one slip and the hunt is on, they don’t let up. The AI is smart enough to avoid a trap, opting to take cover and taunt you out.
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
Starship Saboteur Prototype
Nice prototype… worth playing. Some things I would change, tho:
1 - The models keep squirming after you killed them, even after you try to hide them inside a box
2 - I would make the pistol sound also noticeable to those who are close
Overall, there’s a lot of potential ;), imho
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Rad.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Shade
You’ve just been murdered, and now you have to find out why. You are now a shade, a newly-formed ghost caught between the worlds of the living and the dead. To dig up the truth, you must enter into the minds of your closest friends and family to pry out their darkest secrets. But this new world is a dangerous one, crawling with bizarre creatures and threats. And what you do with the truths you uncover may set you free, or seal your fate forever.
Key Features:
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Play through an engaging stealth system where you use light, sound, and your wits to outsmart enemies.
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Channel unique powers to manipulate the environment and turn the odds in your favor.
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Unlock game-changing traits to play the game your own way.
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Dig through a twisting story to uncover the truth about your identity, and the hidden secrets of those you thought you knew best.
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Sink into an imaginative world filled with lush, hand-drawn art and an original soundtrack.
The Occupation
This game can be a really great experience and I highly recommend it, with just one big caveat.
You basically get the snoop around as a detective in some very well-crafted environments with lots of details, where it’s actually quite a challenge to figure out what’s going on and find what you are looking for, adding to the fact that you have limited time really works well to give you the sense of realism that is lacking in so many stealth games - and this is where the game excels. It’s also quite an interesting storyline with some interesting characters and interactions.
– Real player with 19.2 hrs in game
I wish I could give this game a positive review, but… I can’t. Other reviews go into a fair amount of depth about the technical issues, so I won’t discuss them here – I, personally, only ran into a single bug (other actors walking through gates that wipe floppy disks causing a floppy disk in my inventory to wipe, which the developers have plans to fix), but that’s not my issue with this game.
The reason for my negative review is that this game tries very hard to tell a story, but the gameplay mechanics undermine the story at every turn. You play the role of an investigative reporter who, for unknown reasons, has decided (been assigned?) to investigate a bombing (kinda?) at a local, high profile, technology firm. For some reason, you start with no knowledge at all of what this firm does – initial impressions are that they are a PR firm advocating for the passage of “The Union Act”, but later revelations reveal that this is incorrect (I think?). One would think that this sort of background information would be easily accessible (perhaps in the handy briefcase), but…
– Real player with 16.2 hrs in game
Thief™ Gold
I can’t believe I played this game 20 years ago and it’s still a blast. Well, it’s my number one game, just look at my avatar.
Technology:
The way this game is meant to be played is with TFix + HDMod. I repeat !!!TFix!!! (not TGTool). I can safely say that now the game looks better than ever, even compared to its original release back in 98. The reason why is pretty simple - the hardware limitations at that time were quite significant. TFix patches the game with the unofficial New Dark Engine lifting the limitations imposed by the original Dark Engine. There are many improvements: support for higher resolution, the in-game objects have significantly more polygons, bugfixes, HD textures.
– Real player with 71.2 hrs in game
It is amazing how as computing technology improves and new tools such as VR are introduced that consumers continue to pine for ‘better’ and ‘more immersive’ games, as though immersion is some ideal we may hope to one day achieve once the graphics are good enough and the gadgets we attach to our forehead become more effective. However, one need only look back to the late 90’s, when a developer known as Looking Glass studios was already forging the path for immersive simulators decades ahead of time.
– Real player with 61.2 hrs in game