There are a lot of games, and it is simply impossible to write in detail about everyone. In gambling, we try to pay attention to the best indie projects, but large releases, of course, give priority. As a result, it is not always possible to play all potentially interesting small games in time – and it happens to them a whole overview. Therefore, we decided to create a new section “Nakhodka of the month”, in which we will talk about small games in free form. First of all, we will try to highlight fresh and good releases, but we will periodically affect the older games that deserve attention, and also warn about the disappointing new products.
Tunic
Platforms : PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Nostalgia (especially within the framework of the gaming industry) has always been a double -edged sword. Когда приятные воспоминания о былых деньках попадают прямо в сердце, стилизованные под «старину» проекты порой дарят целую гамму ярких эмоций. At the same time, many developers often exacerbate a stick when it comes to nostalgic curtsy: sometimes consciously, sometimes by negligence. Still, in pursuit of the past, you can easily forget about the present. Some games are so striving to recall the immortal classics that as a result, their authors simply do not have enough time for their own ideas – if they were generally.
Tunic settled somewhere between these two extremes. It is enough to look at the screenshots once to accurately recognize its main source of inspiration: the first parts The Legend of Zelda – Those who came out on the early consoles Nintendo. Moreover, obvious similarities are not at all limited to an isometric camera. The little hero of the Lisenno explores the mysterious island in search of three magic artifacts, solves the riddles of the dungeons, defeats formidable bosses … Only an old man in a cave is missing, who would present a sword with the words “It’s dangerous to go alone”. With the exception of a simple combat system, where everything is tied to a timing and stamina management (hello Dark Souls ), the author of the game Andrew Sholdis created an almost perfect remake of the original The Legend of Zelda in a modern way. It seems to be a toy, but unexpectedly large -scale and amazingly colorful adventure, full of carefully hidden secrets and surprises. After only an hour of the game, it becomes clear why the solo-developer spent on the project for six years: such a quality of study really takes time.
The nuance is that Tunic brings warm memories not so much about The Legend of Zelda, but about childhood in principle. About the time when each new game was perceived as a large event, and to pass complex fragments, I had to leave notes in the fields or call someone older (in my case-most often mom). The whole text in the game, from road signs to the names of objects in the inventory, is written in a fictional language: although there are occasionally individual words in English, the meaning of most phrases will still have to be found out with an experimental way – or even to solve it out of the context. As in childhood, when the letters seemed simply incomprehensible squiggles. Moreover, scraps of pages from a real instruction book like that was attached to the real copies of Zelda and many other boxed publications are scattered throughout the island. In places on them you can even find notes left by the previous owner: on one page he will carefully indicate traps awaiting in a dark tunnel, on the other – partially solve a complex puzzle. While the brave fox saves the world, you collect new pages, and thanks to them you will learn more about mechanics, Laura and other details.
Thanks to such trifles, Tunic beats the ideas traditional for the genre in a completely unusual way. Fresh, sincerely, without pink glasses. The game can quite be accused of the absence of his own identity, but Andrew Sholdis perfectly conveyed the unforgettable impressions that remembered that era of retro gaming. And although Tunic does not offer anything new in terms of the gaming process, a trip of several evenings is absolutely worth it – at least for the sake of the children's, unwilling joy of discoveries.
Weird West
Platforms : PC, PS4, Xbox One
But about Weird West, Unfortunately, I personally cannot tell anything good. Although, again, the first details about the project sounded curious: the debut of the team of immigrants from Arkane Studios Under the leadership of Rafael Kolantonio promised to be interesting. Mystical western in a living open world that reacts to the solution of the player, and even performed by recognized masters of the Immersive SIM genre – it is difficult to pass by such an intriguing advertisement. Partly, Weird West even fulfills these beautiful promises … It is a pity that playing it is still insanely boring. It is so boring that instead of a full -fledged review, I decided to write only a small chapter about it in the heading: there is practically nothing to talk about.
First of all, if you suddenly expected something from Weird West in the spirit of Arkane Studios creativity, then it is better to immediately reduce the expectations: this is not Immersive SIM, but a completely uncomplicated shooter shooter. The interactiveness of the environment here is limited mainly by exploding barrels and all sorts of useless little things like the opportunity to bury any corpse (spoiler: there is absolutely no need to do it) or build a pyramid from boxes. I would not find fault with such details, but the problem is that the game process Weird West is felt monstrously budget, if not cheap. Moreover, it is difficult to highlight what exactly went wrong: it seems that everything is generally.
For as much as five (!) The game proposes to engage in the same thing: extremely clumsy shootings, from which even with a great desire it is difficult to enjoy the same. I tried, but the authors gathered a complete bingo of typical problems – from a curve of an isometric camera to poor registration of hits, disgusting AI of opponents and the design of locations. Sometimes Weird West mechanics really allow you to show a trick: for example, shoot a oil lantern over the heads of some bandits or blow up dynamite right in the enemy’s hand. Such moments of improvisation look great, but in practice they happen very rarely-in the vast majority of situations to go to some tactical tricks either disadvantageous or inconvenient. As a result, the passage of each next plot is not much different from the previous one, although the player will visit the role of completely different characters in nature. Old Buster Hunts, a native of an American, a cult of https://sister-site.org/milky-wins/ a cult, a werewolf, even a real Chelmedvedosvin-all are played more or less equally.
Scriptwriters Wolfeye Studios The ENT WEIRD WEST ENT worthy of work: he does not go too far beyond the standard cliches for the “strange westerns” genre, but it still looks original. Small bandits can conclude a trade union with cerebront monsters and exchange hostages for smuggling. Witches abduct missing men, sew their pork heads and send them aimlessly wandering around the swamps as punishment for carnal sins. Golden fever may not be a figure of speech, but a real disease caused by the spirit of greed. I would like to find out more about all this, only the narratives in Weird West in fact are unfortunately few: only short, non -acting dialogs and familiar diaries. The stories of the heroes are not remembered at all, some bright characters in the vastness of the strange West also cannot be found. The surrounding world is really changing, but the player does not care about this: what difference does it make that the next town is empty, if there was nothing remarkable in it before?
It is possible that my expectations were slightly overstated, but Weird West, even in the budget indie segment, looks, to put it mildly, mediocre. An interesting setting does not draw a dreary gameplay with rare glimpses of unusual ideas. If you believe in Kolantonio and his team to the last, then you can try, but … To begin with, I would advise you to take a closer look at Hard West. The lack of resources and experience did not prevent its authors from creating a strong (albeit not perfect) tactical strategy, where everything is revealed as it should: both western and mysticism.
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