LucidDream's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:3.7
- Helpful Votes:407
- Reviews Submitted:25
- First Review:January 9, 2012
- Most Recent Review:January 14, 2016
- Featured reviews0
Status:
Murder and deception awaits in NiBiRu: Age of Secrets! You'll be sent reeling into the heart of an exhilirating adventure!
Overall rating
2
/
5
9 of 12 found this review helpful
Dull and clichéd adventure game
PostedMarch 31, 2012
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
I generally like this type of game, but I found this one to be a rather poor entry in the genre. Due to a rather poor story and various other flaws it just wasn't particularly fun to play.
The story seems promising at first, but unfortunately no aspect of the story is explored in any detail. Instead, story threads tend to be abandoned in favour of something new before they develop into something interesting. The result was that I just didn't feel very motivated to make progress. There were also a couple of scenes that felt really cliché, in particular the ending.
The graphics are pretty good although character animations are not as good as the backgrounds and they have a somewhat different style which was sometimes a little bit jarring. The voice acting on the other hand ranges from acceptable to downright painful to listen too. Fortunately the voice acting of the main character is acceptable, but many other characters were acted so badly that it seriously detracted from my sense of immersion.
The level of challenge is okay. There are a few more challenging puzzles but in general the puzzles are quite easy. The puzzles are also mostly rather boring, with way to many fetch tasks, where you have to obtain an item for another charachter, and simalar puzzles of that sort. At times I felt more like an errand boy than an adventurer. Also, once you have looked at everything in a scene the game only let's you interact with objects you need to interact with which means there are often only a few possibilities to try. This makes the puzzles less challenging and seems as if designed to encourage a trial and error approach which in general makes gameplay less fun. I also found it annoying that the game often restricted my freedom of movement for no good reason, only allowing me to visit a very limited number of locations at any one time. This also made the game less challenging and detracted from any sense of freedom therefore making gameplay less fun.
In conclusion I didn't enjoy this game much, due to a clichéd story without much detail, poor voice acting and mostly rather dull puzzles.
I don't recommend this game.
Private Investigator Alan P. Cameron has been hired to check out strange phenomena in a manor above Loch Ness. Crack the case!
Overall rating
3
/
5
30 of 36 found this review helpful
Promising but flawed detective game
PostedMarch 16, 2012
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
Playing a PI and investingating a disappeared person case in and around a Scottish castle sounds like an interesting premise for an adventure game and this game shows a fair amount of promise but unfortunately, due to various flaws, it fails to rise much above mediocreness.
The best aspect of the game is the characters which are (or perhaps I should say seem to be since I did not get to see very much of them) a colorful bunch with diverse personalities. Unfortunately the game contains very little character interaction and the various non player characters almost only appear in the few cutscenes that occur at various points throughout the game.
The worst aspect of the game is the navigational system. The game is played from a first person perspective where you can rotate your viewpoint in 3D with the mouse and move to a new location by clicking when the mouse cursor turns to an arrow. The problem is that you often don't end up in the location that you would have expected. This can be confusing, in particular when you are moved past a door or an object that you were hoping to interact with (many doors in the game not only can't be opened but actually can't even be approached). The fact that objects can only be interacted with from a particular location even when they are visible from more than one location and sometimes about equally far away in the different locations where they are visible doesn't make things any better.
The thing that will immediately strike a modern player about the graphics is that they are of quite low resolution. However, on the positive side the visual world of the game is quite detailed. For example the castle where a fairly large amount of the gameplay takes place contains plenty of paintings, suits of armour, shields and other objects appropriate to the location. My impression was that the graphics would have been quite beautiful if displayed at a higher resolution. Unfortunately, with the low resolution that is used in the game the graphics look very grainy.
The story is rather standard fare without many surprises, although it is spiced up a bit by elements from Scottish mythology that I felt were underused.
The puzzles were mostly fairly easy but with a few a bit more challenging ones. Sometimes it was necessary to revisit a previously visited location to trigger some scripted event and this was not always appropriately hinted at which I found rather annoying since it led to a fair amount of aimless wandering around.
In conclusion, the game shows enough potential that I am considering giving the sequel a try since I've read that some of the flaws that keep this game from being more than just barely okay have been dealt with. Unfortunately the grainy graphics, the lack of character interaction and the bad navigational system keeps the game from being good enough that I would want to recommend it.
I don't recommend this game.
Go on a journey which will take you everywhere from damp prehistoric forests to the sultry deserts of ancient Egypt!
Overall rating
3
/
5
70 of 86 found this review helpful
Pleasant but shallow adventure
PostedFebruary 27, 2012
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
This was one of those games that seemed promising at first only to gradually become less and less interesting the more I played.
The game has an interesting premise. You, as one of the "children of the moon", mix potions to gain magical powers, which you can use to perform various tasks with the ultimate goal of making the moon "green". Unfortunately the story sufferes from a severe lack of detail. You find a book early on in the game which has a single page of information about the "children of the moon", and that is all you will learn about that topic throughout the entire game. The book also contains short descriptions of tasks you must do, without giving any more detail about why you are doing these tasks. As you gain control of magic to travel through space and time various new locations become available, also without any motivation about why you would want to travel to those locations in particular (although sometimes you can guess the reason). The one page of information on the "children on the moon" in the book you find at the start of the game and what I told you, and what you can guess from the title, about the task being to make the moon "green" is all there is to the story unfortunately.
The actual gameplay mainly consists of looking for the various objects that are needed to make the magical potions. This is fun at first.but quickly becomes repetitive. It is also not very challenging since many of the objects you need to find are simply lying around in plain sight. Sometimes you need to play a mini game or perform a task (the task generally involve finding another object) to get an object from a character. I found the mini games to be quite easy. Some of the objects you need to find need to be created by doing something to an existing object, and some objects are given a description such that it requires some puzzling to figure out which object fits the description. These kind of challenges made the gameplay a bit more interesting, but they were underused and too easy for my taste.
The graphics and music were fairly good and gave the game a pleasant atmosphere. The main negative aspect of the graphics is the almost total lack of character animation. Characters mostly stand or sit absolutely still, as if they were frozen in a certain pose, which in some cases looks quite unnatural.
The game involves travelling to a wide variety of different locations and different time periods. Unfortunately, the only thing you can do at many of these locations is pick up one or a few objects. Characters that you meet either don't talk to you at all, simply tell where to find someone else or give you some task to do in order to obtain an object. The characters completely lack any personality or background that you can learn. Therefore, travelling to different locations across a number of different time periods is not nearly as exciting as it sounds.
In conclusion, while the pleasant atmosphere, the attractiveness of the environmental premise and the inital appeal of the task of mixing magic potions made the game enjoyable enough to not be outright bad the lack of any depth in terms of story and/or character development and the repetetiveness of the object hunting prevented the game from being good enough that I would recommend it to anyone.
I don't recommend this game.
Help Jim find Long John Silver's hidden treasure! Avoid dangerous traps set by the legendary pirate, and discover awesome riches!
Overall rating
4
/
5
31 of 32 found this review helpful
Charming but short pirate adventure
PostedJanuary 20, 2012
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
I quite liked this game despite finding it a bit too easy for my taste. It has a charming story, good graphics and fun to solve pirate themed puzzles.
The story, which is intended as a continuation of the novel "The Treasure Island", can be considered rather predictable. However, I think it may need to be a bit predictable in order to fulfil our expactations of what a pirate adventure should contain and to stay true to the spirit of the well known book. Besides, the story is presented in such a charming and pleasant way that I didn't care too much that parts of it felt a bit cliché.
The graphics are in general really good although I found that the game could have used a bit more character animation. Characters are in general standing or sitting around doing nothing whenever you look at them, presumably at least in part because it would have been more difficult to make the graphics necessary to show characters moving around and doing things, which sometimes detracted a bit from my immersion in the game. This is not a major problem however, in particular since most locations in the game are uninhabited anyway.
The puzzles are mostly rather easy but with a few a bit more challenging ones towards the end of the game. The game is also quite short. However, I enjoyed the game enough that I would consider replaying it sometime in the future when my memory of it has faded somewhat, which makes the short playtime somewhat less of a problem. Also, the puzzles were in general fun to solve even when they didn't provide me with very much of a challenge, in particular since the nature of many of the puzzles fitted the pirate theme of the game nicely.
In conclusion i would recommend the game to anyone who enjoys a good pirate story.
I recommend this game!
Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches
Explore a haunted farmstead in Wales called Ty Pryderi! Chris has been asked to house-sit, and is in for a spooky surprise!
Overall rating
5
/
5
11 of 12 found this review helpful
Fun and atmospheric first person adventure
PostedJanuary 9, 2012
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
I greatly enjoyed this game. It has a very interesting story, great graphics and fairly challenging puzzles including some quite creative ones.
The story is told through emails, letters and diaries found in the game, so a lot of reading is required. This may put some players off but I enjoyed this format of storytelling, in particular since it allows the story to span several different time periods. Besides, the writing is good and I found that the diary of a former inhabitant of the farm in particular was a real pleasure to read. Many of the puzzles are based on hints given in the reading material and sometimes require combining information from several different sources to figure out the solution, something that I found made for an interesting challenge, but which will again put some players off, in particular if they are relatively new to the genre (or subgenre). The sound effects were good and added to the atmosphere of the game. There is not much music in the game, but the music that does exist is good and it is used at appropriate occasions. The graphics are excellent, both in terms of the level of detail and the visual design of the locations (for example I found that the 15 year old girl's room looked just right given the information about her gained from her diary).
At first I found the navigation system a bit confusing, but I quickly got used to it. In the end, the main weakness I found with the game was that the automatic notes which provide a useful reminder of your current objectives sometimes also provided unwanted hints, giving away things that I would rather have figured out on my own. Also, since it is only possible to pick up objects when you need them, it was sometimes easy to guess the use of an object based on at what time it became possible to pick it up, providing another source of potentially unwanted hints. Without these minor problems the game would have provided an even more interesting challenge.
I recommend this game!