![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThese games were very much a mixed bag, because I tend to really like psychological horror games, but I kinda hate first-person setups—especially when they involve stealth or combat, or when you need to fight with the controls because of a poorly grafted-on puzzle interface.
The Moon Sliver - A first-person atmospheric exploration horror game. You are someone on a mysterious island, and you need to piece together what's going on from the fragments of conversation / memories you can find. The fact that your flashlight can run out can be a little panic-inducing, but that's really the only "game" element in this half-hour story. It's clever.
The Path - A curious game that reminds me in some ways of “Sleep No More.” It doesn't really have a narrative beyond "go through the woods to Grandmother's house and stay on the path"...and if you want to see anything at all, you need to not do exactly that. There are lots of strange sights and curious items to find in the woods, but nothing really means anything beyond what you ascribe to it. (And the "success" state of the game, to the extent there is one, involves getting eaten by a Wolf.)
1Heart - Point-and-click adventure with many hidden secrets and obtuse puzzles, and a freaky rough-hewn art style. The fact that there are no skips and very limited hints--in a game that's old-school obtuse--is irritating. There's a "don't touch the walls" maze near the end that greatly irritated me, and when I finally got through that I had to waste a hint because I was doing the right thing but in ever-so-slightly the wrong place. And then I got stymied very close to the end by an overlapping-lines puzzle. Oy. I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this. But aspects of it pissed me off.
Kraven Manor - A first-person horror exploration game crossed with an adventure/puzzle game. I found the controls difficult to use and the lack of an inventory screen problematic (you can only carry one item at a time, and any mouse click drops/throws it). The gimmick--assembling the haunted mansion with the model pieces you find in it--is interesting, but the creepy haunted suit of armor that I had to clumsily flee (using controls I don't like) from wasn't my idea of a fun monster, and I don't get them impression there's enough plot to pay off playing through this.
Betrayer - An FPS horror game that, I'm not going to lie, is really beautiful. A black and white mysterious island with splashes of red, that never has a chance to seem idyllic before monstrous, crazed inhabitants try to kill you. So you end up with both action and stealth gameplay that doesn't really work for me. (Though I’m tempted to look up a Let’s Play.)
Montague's Mount - Another first-person horror exploration game crossed with an adventure/puzzle game, though this one for some reason seems less threatening. (Though I also discovered an interesting problem: When I focus too intently on small things in a moving first person view, I get nauseous.) It's also very pretty, though the fact that it's constantly raining, which causes the screen to darken into black and white, means it's hard to see things and I get frustrated rather than enjoying the scenery. Also, after the first few, the puzzles get very fragmented and obtuse, and FPS and pixel-hunting for items don't mix well for me.
Like the Brain Eaters, there were several games in this bundle that didn't grab me at all, so I didn't even try them.
Overall: Again, I didn’t get a massive amount of gameplay time out of this, but ~5 hours for my two bucks is still totally worth it. And hey, I learned important things about my game tastes.
The Moon Sliver - A first-person atmospheric exploration horror game. You are someone on a mysterious island, and you need to piece together what's going on from the fragments of conversation / memories you can find. The fact that your flashlight can run out can be a little panic-inducing, but that's really the only "game" element in this half-hour story. It's clever.
The Path - A curious game that reminds me in some ways of “Sleep No More.” It doesn't really have a narrative beyond "go through the woods to Grandmother's house and stay on the path"...and if you want to see anything at all, you need to not do exactly that. There are lots of strange sights and curious items to find in the woods, but nothing really means anything beyond what you ascribe to it. (And the "success" state of the game, to the extent there is one, involves getting eaten by a Wolf.)
1Heart - Point-and-click adventure with many hidden secrets and obtuse puzzles, and a freaky rough-hewn art style. The fact that there are no skips and very limited hints--in a game that's old-school obtuse--is irritating. There's a "don't touch the walls" maze near the end that greatly irritated me, and when I finally got through that I had to waste a hint because I was doing the right thing but in ever-so-slightly the wrong place. And then I got stymied very close to the end by an overlapping-lines puzzle. Oy. I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this. But aspects of it pissed me off.
Kraven Manor - A first-person horror exploration game crossed with an adventure/puzzle game. I found the controls difficult to use and the lack of an inventory screen problematic (you can only carry one item at a time, and any mouse click drops/throws it). The gimmick--assembling the haunted mansion with the model pieces you find in it--is interesting, but the creepy haunted suit of armor that I had to clumsily flee (using controls I don't like) from wasn't my idea of a fun monster, and I don't get them impression there's enough plot to pay off playing through this.
Betrayer - An FPS horror game that, I'm not going to lie, is really beautiful. A black and white mysterious island with splashes of red, that never has a chance to seem idyllic before monstrous, crazed inhabitants try to kill you. So you end up with both action and stealth gameplay that doesn't really work for me. (Though I’m tempted to look up a Let’s Play.)
Montague's Mount - Another first-person horror exploration game crossed with an adventure/puzzle game, though this one for some reason seems less threatening. (Though I also discovered an interesting problem: When I focus too intently on small things in a moving first person view, I get nauseous.) It's also very pretty, though the fact that it's constantly raining, which causes the screen to darken into black and white, means it's hard to see things and I get frustrated rather than enjoying the scenery. Also, after the first few, the puzzles get very fragmented and obtuse, and FPS and pixel-hunting for items don't mix well for me.
Like the Brain Eaters, there were several games in this bundle that didn't grab me at all, so I didn't even try them.
Overall: Again, I didn’t get a massive amount of gameplay time out of this, but ~5 hours for my two bucks is still totally worth it. And hey, I learned important things about my game tastes.
