Reviews by Alex Ros

[Alex Ros]

Dishonored or Steal Your Honor Back

Art-Direction. There's no secret that a lot of quite famous designers-artists were involved into development of the visual style of the Dishonored imaginary city of Dunwall, where all of the events in the game take place. Viktor Antonov, mostly known for a memorable Half-Life 2 City 17 design. Ricardo Bare, the designer of all of the Deus Ex games. Sebastien Mitton, the designer of BioShock 2 fictional ruined underwater city of Rapture and lots of other projects. Simply by knowing such a strong team of designers collaborated on Dishonored, you might expect the visual side of Dishonored would be real unique, well-thought-out, accurately filled with details. And surely you would not be disappointed.

The city of Dunwall design is inspired by late 1700 - early 1900 real cities of London and Edinburgh. As a result we are surrounded by urban slums with extremely narrow and dark alleys, deadlocks in unexpected places, closely adjacent crooked buildings separated from each other at arm's length, windows at ground level, basements connected between ruins into complicated corridor complexes, littered rotten rustу sewers. In contrast with the decay and desolation themes, everything looks like a gracious painting in oils, saturated and even oversaturated by nearly infinite variety of warm colors and soft shades. And everything is truly painted, there no sign of photo realism and hundreds of textures without an exception are painted by hand. It gives you a surprising feeling you're inside of the old-fashioned hand-drawn animation, no comparison with the minimalism of Japanese anime or modern Hollywood 3D animation. NPCs around you from usual residents and funky criminals to uniformed city guards and lush nobles are dressed in fanciful 18th century stylized costumes, and surely that's increasing the effect of the presence at the of appropriate period of time of some fictional imaginary universe.

The world of Dishonored is resembling a futuristic cross between the Victorian Epoch with a lot more advanced modern technologies. The idea itself looks very similar to famous classical stealth Thief trilogy, where Late Middle Ages fantasy dark atmosphere was mixed with industrial themes. As long as both games are First-Person-View stealth oriented, that similarity doesn't look accidental, rather it looks like a conscious attempt to create a reminiscence, an allusion, a barely perceptible sense of recognition and familiarity within the genre. Anyway, industrial steampunkish injections into fantasy Victorian universe of Dishonored at most are designed by Viktor Antonov. His personal style is easily recognizable and there's no difficulty to detect similarities with famous Half-Life 2 City 17 designs in particular. For example, Dishonored Tallboys can be surely perceived as Half-Life Striders reimagination. Some would say there's nothing good to repeat yourself, but me personally accept this as the development of the personal style. And I think it's not that simple that Viktor Antonov is just repeating himself and grave-robbing old worked-out ideas. Kaldwins Bridge is objectively one of the most impressive levels of Dishonored and that is the priceless achievement of Viktor Antonov alone. Who else would be talented enough to deconstruct and than artistically reconstruct the famous Tower Bridge in a futuristic manner? I believe that all these vertically stretched and proportionally distorted mechanisms, machinery and metallic parts of architecture are exactly what make the game visual style something very eclectic, disturbing and memorable as a result. Dishonored would not ever become so spectacular without Viktor Antonov monochromatic metallic-cold industrialistic injections into colorful faerie Victorian Epoch atmosphere.

Dishonored art-direction is extremely complicated, truly well-thought-out and accurately detailed. Imaginary Dunwall city atmosphere is very immersive, everything looks alive and most of players would rapidly find themselves drawn into fictional game universe. 10/10.

Gameplay & Level Design. Innovative, unique and sandboxish gameplay backed by level design sharpened for a non-linear walkthrough are those features of Dishonored that were highly propagated during advertising pre-release campaign. In truth the game is introducing a really impressive toolset of melee and distant-shooting weapons, different types of ammunition, magical abilities and enchantments, dynamical perks so called Bone Charms. There's no restrictions of how to combine all these instruments. And that's exactly what objectively allows to call Dishonored gameplay sandboxish and non-linear. Practically as a player you're gifted by thousands of possibilities of how to walkthrough any single mission. Would you decide to play Dishonored like a non-stop-action game? Or would you prefer to ghost complicated levels? Would you love to try to combine stealth and terminator-alike gameplay styles? Would you decide to methodically explore all levels in order to find secrets and storyline hidden branches-possibilities? And that's only a tip of the iceberg. Would you Blink in order to walkthrough any specific part of a level? Or would you Possess a rat or a guard? Would you silently shoot enemies from a distance with a crossbow? Or would you come out to face enemies and shoot them all with a gun? Would you choose doors or windows to enter any specific building? Or would you decide to crawl through sewers or vent pipes? There're no restrictions and the list of those "Would you..." can easily become nearly infinite.

On the other hand behind all this diversity there's no real sense. There's no real matter, no real importance of how to play and walkthrough levels or missions. It's just a fun and no more. It's a freedom of choice in a desert. There's no open world and most of levels would not give you a feeling of a real non-linearity. In particular only two missions (High Overseer Campbell and House of Pleasure) that are truly non-linear without doubt. Anyway, there's no real sense in non-linearity even of those two levels as long as you would not receive any truly fulfilling behind-the-scenes storyline prize for your efforts to explore the city and learn its atmosphere and imaginary history. There're only two characters whom you're able to interact with and really change something (the old lady witch and the criminal leader). To make my thoughts clear I can compare Dishonored once again with outdated Thief series or Thief: Deadly Shadows of 2004 in particular, where the City was a lot more linear and simply smaller than any of Dishonored levels, but streets and deadlocks were flooded with tens of memorable scenes and characters; desire to poke your curious nose everywhere you could was truly rewarded with unforgettable memories. Back to Dishonored, no matter what you choose, no matter how to play, no matter how many notes you could read, everything leads you to a narrow and disappointing choice between an ugly bastard assasinator or an invisible spy warrior. To kill or not to kill. Dishonored is just a really big gorgeous Amusement Park, where're no restrictions and you're able to choose between hundreds of fascinating engaging attractions. Surely I got my innovative, unique and sandboxish entertainment, but there's nothing to remember.

Surely, I do exaggerate and, just for example, if you would choose not to kill anyone and, as the saying goes, would choose to ghost over levels, you would be gifted with a lot more confusing and non-linear gameplay. Ghosting will force you to look really carefully for hidden passages and rewardly you will do find out there're a lot of them. Dunwall city is buided for carefull exploring. Sadly, but main complaint remains the same, there's no fullfilling backstories and characters. There're thousands of diaries and notes to read, but that's a game, not a book. And, once again, when you would complete the game there will nearly nothing to remember. 7/10.

Storyline. What do we remember? 3000 years passed, but Homer's Odyssey is not forgotten. What is not just entertaining, but fulfilling us emotionally? 2000 years passed, but Dante's Inferno still excites our imagination. I can take a lot less exotic examples and remind the names of Edgar Poe or Howard Lovecraft. What's the secret? Exceptionally beautiful style or unique atmosphere? Not without that for sure. But I believe the answer is a lot simpler. We remeber the stories and characters, scenes and situations, unreachable experience and unforgettable emotions as a result. What is a memorable story? Isn't it when the scenes and characters are meaningful and nothing is senseless? Isn't it a bunch of secrets and mysteries, that are revealing as the story goes on, unexpectedly leading to a newer secrets and mysteries? Isn't it a composition with the beginning, lots of turning points, culmination and final? If this is right, than you can't just entertain, there always must be a sense and meaning behind and between the lines. And games are no exception.

There's not much to say about Dishonored storyline. There's just no story in terms of professional and talented screenplay writing. Everything we got is the banal situation, that you have to revenge and destroy all your enemies. There's no intrigues, no unexpected turning points, no culmination and no impressive final.

Even the attempt to make a turning point, when friendly Loyalists are betraying you, is very unnatural and absolutely unmotivated, because we know too little about the Loyalists characters. What is a lot more confusing is that the authors of Dishonored did find a fine composition, when we begin the game at the tower of Dunwall, bright and beautiful fantasy palace, and later get back to the same point, but drastically changed and turned into an unwelcome and hostile place. This might be a classical nice circular composition. But this small victory turns into a silly defeat and instead of fine ending we receive a short extension with above mentioned Loyalists betrayal. There's nothing wrong with the turning point and Loyalists betrayal, but for good characters must change gradually, not in a moment, and these gradual changes of characters has to be part of story intrigue and mystery, waiting for revealing.

Sadly, but there is not a single scene or a dialogue, where you could sympathize someone, where you could be surprised and truly intrigued. There's no one to love or reasonably hate and no one to remember. We know nothing about our hero Corvo, we know nothing about the main antagonist Lord Regent. Most of characters are just static lifeless masks. Nothing to say about the Emily, the child character whom we expected to care of, but reversely the more we look at her behavior, the more she looks like an arrogant little bitch. The only one character whose personal story is touching and interesting is a story of Granny Rags, whom at first you perceive as a strange old lady with a sad love story behind, but later you realize she had turned to be an evil witch. There's nothing special and genius, nevertheless it's good enough for a game. Without doubt Dishonored could present us a whole lot more of memorable lively characters as long as there's a real lot of kinda skeletons of might-be-really-good characters. For example, the pair of ingenious Piero Joplin and Anton Sokolov might be a truly charismatic pair, but both characters and their stories are simply not developed and left as a draft shadows. Same thing with Callista, the niece of the Captain of City Watch. Slackjaw, the crime boss. Daud, the leader of assassins, who killed the Empress. There were hundreds of possibilities to introduce tens of charismatic persons and memorable scenes, but it just didn't happen for some reasons. As a result Dishonored is nearly a walking dead. 3/10

Conclusion. In general there's an interesting and quite promising idea-situation with plague and rats. Somehow it can be interpreted as a metaphor to a moment of time-of-change, when virgin Victorian glamorous fantasy turns into a mechanical industrial machine, cold and hostile. The world is destroying itself, cleaning itself up with plague and rats to make horrible changes possible. Anyway, the presence of plague and rats could be interpreted in a million ways, no matter what interpretation you choose, but surely it allows you to think about a lot of important things and happenings in our real momentary life. And I would love to praise that Dishonored artistic discovery, but I simply can't as long as plague and rats have turned into surprising move to force players to use stealthy style of playing. The more you assassinate your enemies the more you're surrounded by rats. Multifaceted metaphor turns into a banal morality.

This review is just a private and subjective opinion. Some can agree and some may disagree. But as for me personally I believe and stating on what might become an innovative, spectacular and memorable game, a piece of art, became just an entertaining, senseless and meaningless playground. Shining shell with no gem inside. 6/10

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Seems like Arcane guys decided to patch up the black hole of the rushly developed story and characters. The story of the assassin Daud, presented in 6 chapters of DLC "The Knife of Dunwall" and DLC "The Brigmore Witches" is unexpectedly satisfying with almost a detective story with horrifying elements of mystics. The biggest black hole of the poor story of the original game is totally sealed with DLC full-packege with no doubts, but with the personal doubts of the Daud. 9/10

[Alex Ros]

Dear Esther or Experience Death

Art is always a description of our world. And a good piece of art is always a new description of our world. Thousands years ago we lived on a dish plane, floating over infinite universal ocean. We were the center and we were heroes. And there were Achilles and Odyssey. Time had passed and we found out there's a righteous God abides somewhere at the heavenly clouds and simultaneously there's a malicious Devil at the underground roots of volcanoes in the ocean of fire. Heroes transformed into faithful honorable knights, slaughtering hundreds of damned unbelievers in the name of the true God. Not so long time ago we assumed that we might be all alone in the endless space of uncountable galaxies, there's no God, no Devil, no afterword. Heroes have become a forever suffering philosophers, steppenwolves. There's no good or bad, there's no reward in afterlife, but is there anything hiding on the other side of our dreams? Is there anything awaiting us when our heart finally stops? And fears came out with Edgar Poe and Howard Lovecraft stories. And even unexplored cosmos is greeting us with hostile predators and xenomorphs. Thankfully all those creatures and living nightmares are just a few of answers among thousands of different possibilities what is out there, what is beyond...

Here we are at the island. So solitary and desolated that our only friend and companion is our mind. It takes a few minutes to realize that we are finally free of thoughts about our colleges, our subordinates and superiors, our friends and girlfriends, our parents. It's surely not a vacation at the tropical beach we were planning for the next summer. There's no bikini girls to stare at. But we are staring at the dusk and what should be the most everyday-common thing now perceived like a never-seen-before miracle. We are slowly climbing the stairs, overgrown with weeds and flowers. And rhythmically swaying grass in the wind do catches our attention. Stop! It can't be happening!?! Is not the grass in the wind anything that could not ever catch out attention? It's not an important thing like a traffic light or a sealed envelope with a monthly salary!!! These stones and sand and waves and flowers and stairs and meaningless lighthouse are just nothing! They are of no importance!!! But they are kinda peaceful nothing, soothing nothing, restful nothing... what is that out there I see? Someone painted something on the beach sand. I do not understand... what is that formula on the stone I found? Damn chemistry! And by the way what these standing stones themselves are? Seems like it's something ritual, something like a burial grounds. Is anything horrible awaits for me somewhere out there? But strangely it doesn't feels creepy. This crystal clear tiny brook, streaming in between the cold stones, babbles very nicely and makes this deserted place a welcome one... yeah, but... where the hell am I? Seems like nobody is going to answer as long as I am all alone here. Donnely? Sounds very familiar. Esther? What a lovely romantic name. Should I know it? Dear Esther. What can I tell you? My own thoughts and memories are messed like a... wait... what's that out there? The remains of the crashed boat on the rocks! That's how I got here!!! That's why I don't remember anything! We crashed and I might hit my head and... just a moment... is not that fishing boat crashed here a million years ago? It looks so aged and rusted. So that's not an answer. Should I be surprised? Somehow I knew there would be no easy answers. But do I have any questions? I am sure there's a question, flickering inside my head like a red light dot of a far-away radio-tower. But I can't clearly formulate and pronounce-aloud that question... not yet... if this whole voyage could be a game I presume that the goal would be to always keep on trying to clearly formulate and pronounce-aloud that question. But this is not a game. I am all alone and here's nobody to play with.

Do you mind walking around with me? Whom am I talking to? Am I inviting my own self for a walk? A yellow light beacon is floating not so far from the shore. Whom does it call or warn? Huge cargo ship, heavily distorted by a crash. Rusted and aged and overgrown with grass and flowers as everything else out here. There's nothing interesting there... and... the more I walk around here the island the more I realize that I am myself is the most interesting attraction and puzzle here. I do not even remember when I was completely alone. One on one with myself. Isn't it a type of a dialogue I was missing for years? What do you want? What do you think should you do tomorrow? Tomorrow and after tomorrow. How do you want to live and... wait... no... that question... later... I'd better go to investigate that house on the hill, impressively glowing red in the lights of the sunset. Nothing there, as always. Just a pack of the musical notes, unfinished melodies. Isn't it a grave behind the house? When I was young I also saw my future as a musician. But it didn't happen. A lot of what I was dreaming of when I was young didn't happen. This house and the grave are like my own forgotten unrealized dreams. Metaphorically this whole island is like a... once again... that question... do I really need to answer it? Surely I can do that later. What's that down there? Looks like a whale skeleton. But it's just another one crashed ship on the beach. This island is full of crashes... crash... hm... later. There's a cave entrance, calling me with it's songs...

Wait a second!?! I am sitting in front of a computer. Right? And I have wasted my money on buying a new game. So what am I doing? Am I sitting in front of a computer at home and playing a game? Everything is vice versa!?! I am not playing the game and contrary the game forced me to play with myself. I am playing with my own dreams and thoughts and subconsciousness. That's ridiculous!!! There's nothing happening, there're no cutscenes, there're no enemies, there're no riddles, there's nothing at all except the landscape. Also there's a question. Not even so intriguing, not so mysterious, just a question that screaming aloud for an answer... but... oh... and I know the answer.

The moment of death is a miracle. The same unrepeatable miracle as the moment of getting born. And it becomes clear when you enter the caverns of shimmering lights and unearthly colors. I am dead and I was always dead. The very first step on the shore of this deserted island was a very first step to the other side. And simultaneously this other side is deep inside. This place is full of crashed dreams and finally I got crashed myself. That's the answer. Momentary death in a crash. What do you think my dear Esther? Is not that island what I was in life and that's my way to the afterlife? And right now I am here at the most indescribably beautiful part of myself, at the caverns of subconsciousness. The incredible maze of unpronounced thoughts and unrealized dreams. The source of all the tiny brooks, of all the rivers and lakes, of the endless ocean of the imagination. Esther, my dear, I wish I could show you this hidden part of myself. Isn't it too late? What I was thinking about when I was alive? Where's my time? How could I crash all those tiny boats and gigantic ships? It's a little bit frightening how easily we could get lost in the caves. But isn't it exactly what do I want to right now? To get lost and roam forever. The water is flowing and I am following it's breeding streams. The spiral of waterfalls. The downward spiral that leads upwards. Look up and stare at the lights, stop and stare at your final destination...

Could this all be just those infamous 3 minutes, when the human body is already dead and brains are still living? Or could this be a vision of the Limbo? And am I supposed to walk through that modern Limbo to get to Heaven? Could this be a... it could. There's a lot of possibilities what exactly this island is about. The only thing I am sure about is that it's not a game. And I believe that it's the most interesting game possible. That's not a game leading into an imaginary world of intriguing events and characters. And that's the game leading you to your own story. This is the virtual world that forces you to see your own world, the world of yourself. That's not what games are supposed to be. But that is what art is supposed to be. "Dear Esther" is a new description of our world. "Dear Esther" is a new metaphor of what is our universe and what is beyond and what is inside of us. "Dear Esther" forces, disturbs and leads you to become not a player, but an author. There's no other way to enjoy "Dear Esther", but to become a co-author of this virtual world. This is a dead piece of rock overgrown with crashed ships. There's nothing real interesting out there at the isolated and deserted island if your own mind is isolated and deserted. You won't be satisfied if you just sit down and listen to the voice mutterings and music scapes. It's not an audio book. It's not a pack of visuals and level design tutorials. You can't be entertained if there's nothing entertaining in your own imagination. "Dear Esther" is surely an experiment. But is not an experiment what art is supposed to be? "Dear Esther" is unfinished. But is there any piece of art that is truly finished? Jorge Luis Borges, the most famous Spanish author of short-stories, was asked once in a interview: "How do you finish your stories?" And Jorge answered: "There's no single story that I truly finished. There's always something to polish and as a result the process of writing is infinite. But then my editor just comes and picks up the manuscript".

[Bridge]

Nice Dishonored review. I agree with most of what you said but I do not really agree with your rating. I do agree that the story is shallow, the characters are peripheral and all of your targets are essentially just MacGuffins (though the reason behind each assassination is acceptable; just not very interesting or well developed). On the other hand, I think we should be grateful that one of the most high-profile games of the year was a good stealth game, which is really a dying breed. I can live with a boring story as long as the gameplay is exceptional, and in this regard I give Dishonored at least a 9. Even if it's just a playground as you put it, the possibilities for getting through the missions allows for virtually endless replayability, just like in the Hitman games. This game is actually very difficult to ghost with no magic (I can't get past Return to the Tower yet) and as an obsessive stealth fan I am infinitely grateful to be able to play in some new environments, with new goals, sneaking past my enemies. It's so visceral and satisfying, and I think for bringing us some real stealth Dishonored was a success (BTW, as a Thief fan I take offense at you calling the first two games outdated - they are still the most popular games to ghost and are as far as I'm concerned timeless).

I think Arkane really need to rethink their priorities though for sure. All of their games have fun, incredibly detailed, impressive gameplay with amazing graphics (for their time) but all have absolutely terrible stories. I haven't played Bioshock 2 but this is applicable to both Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Arkane just don't seem to realize how important story is in video games. But Dark Messiah and Dishonored are both games I would readily play again because of the amazing gameplay. Personally I would give Dishonored a 7/10 overall, even though I basically agree with everything you said.

[Acies]

I agree with "the story" part. The story in Dishonored wasn't fulfilling or memorable. One thing which I feel hasn't been touched upon is the movement system. The movement system felt spot on to me, allowing maximum control of the character. For example the ablity to silently climb objects while crouching, or the responsiveness to movement/running. I often feel that in any "fast-paced" game precise and diverse movement is what makes or breaks the feel of being "powerful". "On the fly/quickly decided" movement maneuvers feels great.

[Alex Ros]

Slender: the Arrival and Departure

The most scary monster is the one, which our imagination is giving birth to. There's no book, no movie, no game possible, that can scare us. Our subconciousness is the only source of fear. We rely on our five senses. And when one of them is amputated, we are creating a momentary crutch of our imagination. In most cases we truly manage to find the route to the toilet with an amputated vision in the dark house at the night time. While we're dealing with the horror genre and a horror games in particular, the most gifted with a talent are those developers, who would imperceptibly turn our imagery crutch into a treacherous serpent. The venom of fear would poison our subconciousness absolutely, while we would not even notice that. We begin to expect that something horrible awaits us. And most frightening moments are those, when we just expect something terrible to happen, but in truth nothing is really happening. Rustles and unexpected noises, shadows and dark corners are just rustles and unexpected noises, shadows and dark corners. But we hear something horrible is sneaking around, we see that something terrible is hiding right here. The more obscurity, hints and glimpses we would be facing on our investigational "route to the toilet", the more frightened we would become. On our knees, scared to death by ourselves, we are crawling around in search of some clues of what's happening, of what's happened right before our appearence here. Intriguing mystery of the story is whipping us shamelessly. Sealed at the bilge we continue to row, thirsty to know about our final destination point. And we are sincerely happy, when the bottom of the galley is starting to scrape the sand. But that's the moment, when the magic bursts like a bubble. We face our enemy. And there's nothing left to imagine. There is only a shimmering faceless lanky man in the black suit. Nothing's left to expect or investigate. Running around is all that remains. Environment does change, while we are running around like unstoppable rabbits and searching for notes instead of tasty carrots. And with no doubt environment is stunning, vast and placatory, open and gorgeous, enormously enhancing the sense of how defenceless, vulnerable, useless and lost we are here in the world of real wilderness. Environment is the only narrative of that story. Because there's no other worthy narrative. There's only a monotonous gameplay, not scary, not intriguing, just boring and simply annoying.

[OriginalUsername]

I love to read these reviews. They're really well written. I don't agree with everything, but it's good to read other people's opinions

[Alex Ros]

Outlast and Forget

The most priceless moment with any kind of art is when you already got your ticket to the imagery world and stopped for a second at the gates. That moment is unrepeatable, when you’re already observing a game launcher icon and just imagining, where this journey would take you. There are uncountable billions of possibilities what to imagine, while in fact you’re observing your own personal expectations and dreams. And even if you’re staring at the facade of the abandoned asylum, which you have visited for hundreds of times in all those mental hospital theme stories with uncontrollable doctors, experimenting with unfortunate patients, there are still thousands of possibilities what to expect.

Outlast would not present you with anything, but absolutely standard abandoned asylum far-long burned-out campfire horror story. There’s no gold in the depleted mine of brutal medical experiments, which turned the place of the highest benefaction of healing people into the church of pain and tears. Are those persistently hunting you mumbling crazies, no way distinguishable from the skinny zombies, everything you’ve been afraid to face? Haven’t you already met those fanatically suicidal pseudo new religion sectarians somewhere else? Are those desolated interiors richly decorated with blood splashes of past murders, blood painted pseudo intriguing phrases and shimmering lights of electric lamps and candles is anything, but an annoying cliche? Endless rain and thunder… Ubiquitous shadows of never-escape barred windows… Infinite night darkness… Perpetual empty cabinets of personnel with never-stop-working monitors… Is this really everything you could imagine, while you were staying at the gates and staring at the ancient abandoned asylum somewhere in the remote mountainous terrain at the gorgeous dusk?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the usage of any specific genre cliches, such as a haunted castle or mansion, an abandoned asylum, holy grounds of a gothic cathedral, cemeteries, etc. That is the indescribable magic of art, that allows you to approach the Last Supper scene for thousand and first time and fantastically it would not ever become truly the last one supper. Outlast impertinently offers you to enjoy the same old carte with a set of predictable mental hospital dishes all along the playthrough. And some people, quite a crowdy audience of pretty thankful consumers, do like to visit the same restaurant and munch good old predictable bloody steak.

Cinematography, theatrical performances, literature and comic magazines allow to control our attention all along the storypath with an intrigue at the beginning, with a set of unexpected plot twists and finally with a disclosure of secrets at the very end. Everything is under control, where to look and what should we memorize unconsciously, when should we rise our attention or vice versa make a pleasant sigh of relief, eventually even the rhythm of our heart beating is under control. With the games everything is contrary nearly uncontrollable as long as the whole magnetism of computer games is based on interactivity and freedom of choice. And as a result for a game developer the most effective way to share his story or vision with the people and make it memorable are game quests. The rule is truly that simple, that a game quest is the only way, most effective way to momentary rise our “freedom-of-choice-attention” and push our thoughts and presumptions in some certain direction. And therefore the game story should be told at most through the quests sequence in order to create a truly interactive and highly immersive story.

Outlast developers didn’t bother to chain together plot twists and game quests. To find a key in order to… To find the rusty valves in order to… To find a pack of electro fuses in order to… in order to proceed to a new area. Search for something and that’s all about quests. And while your protagonist is always searching for something in order to… there is always an enemy searching for your protagonist. You search, they search, you search, they search, you search, they search… Somehow that gameplay circle does build the atmosphere of the real mental hospital with daily, weekly, yearly, forever and ever repeating hypnotizing procedure of healing and being a patient. It would not be surprising to face McMurphy somewhere in those corridors of that abandoned asylum or simply discover his name in the patients list.

Outlast storyline is not just overused and thus predictable, but also boring and primitive as long as there are no significant plot twists. Outlast is just about entering an asylum, collecting documents about experiments and finally stopping that out of control experiment. That’s all about the storyline, there’s nothing more in the basement. As a result there were simply nothing in the storyline to chain with quests and they’re predictably just as boring and primitive as the storyline itself.

Interactive story telling is not just about quests sequence. Not to mention that reading documents surely isn’t the best way to disclosure plot secrets and mysteries. As long as games decorations are open for free exploration by the player, unlike cinematographic decors which are under control of the director of photography, the game environment alone is a really amusing way to share your story without any quests or characters and dialogs or notes collecting. Explorations of the detailed interiors and interactions with dynamic objects could tell a lot more of what happened and in a lot more effective way, immersing a player into the imagery game universe, ready to whisper its chilling story.

Outlast abandoned asylum meets you with a couple of derelict formidable military cars and that’s a very simple, but still effective way to warn me, that the situation here is truly out of control, so much out of control, that personnel of the hospital had to invite soldiers to take situation back under control. But while I am standing near the main entrance, there are no voices, no shots, nothing but silence. And thus I may realize, that the situation is still out of control and worst of all seems like weapons have not helped at all. Frightened quite a bit with trying to imagine the fears I would face by entering that forsaken place I am bravely continuing to search for a way to sneak inside of the abandoned asylum. It does not take a minute to discover the scaffoldings outside a hospital wing. Silent observation of those scaffoldings gives me the clear understanding that somebody decided to reopen far long abandoned asylum and began to restore the ancient building. What is the reason for reopening far long abandoned asylum? As long as I have already seen military tanks and heard no sounds of life I am free to presume, that someone and probably a greedy corporation was interested not in healing, but in continuing some yet mysterious for me experiments. And… And that’s just the very beginning of the game without any quests, notes or dialogs. That’s how Outlast could tell me the whole thrilling story, at least some parts of the mysterious story of the abandoned asylum. And that’s something that haven't happened. There are some places, that did whisper some details of the story, no matter of how simple and predictable those details of the story were, but in fact there are only a few, woefully few of such silently-speaking parts of the environment.

Outlast level design is just professional, which is surely admirable. There is nothing really interesting to highlight and celebrate with a special attention. Everything is polished like a diamond, a real visual pleasure. Meaningless and pointless, but nevertheless a real visual pleasure. Outlast level design is absolutely linear, all areas or locations are isolated one from another completely. Therefore it’s impossible to arrange a free-roaming-exploration tour throughout the ancient abandoned asylum in order to admire the detailed models and photorealistic textures, eye-catching well-thought-out combinations of colors throughout all of the interiors, lights and shadows efficiently working on each other, etc.

There is a widespread belief that the first person view is rising the immersion, the effect of the presence in the imagery world. And that is where Outlast does shine upon the entire game developers and game players undividable worlds. That is where Outlast is presenting an unprecedentedly impressive first person view experience, rising the immersion to the tops of the mountains, surrounding that cursed abandoned asylum. Outlast offers not just a clumsy model of your protagonist body, it offers the widescale set of lively animations for just about everything you could do within the walls of the mental hospital. And your protagonist could do a lots of things, it would not be a surprise to notice that he can walk, run, crawl, crouch and jump, but also and that’s a bit more surprising he can pull on his hands for example to get into the ventilation, he can hang on the hands and move on the parapet just outside the windows, he can squeeze through narrow passages, he can slowly move along the wall on residues of the collapsed floor, etc. Most memorable Outlast developers touch is that lively animation of leaning and looking into the dangerously silent hall through the door, while one of your hands gently rests on the doorframe. With no doubts the first person view offered by the Outlast developers is just outstanding. And in general in conclusion that is the only one absolute victory of the Outlast. Everything else and truly everything could be praised or criticized.

[Alex Ros]

Is there anyone at all who would be interested in reading my review of a Machine for Pigs? I am a person that interested in doing something that is interesting to others. It's just my personal opinion that I always need to try to do things that are useful or interesting to others, maybe it's a bit naive, but that's the way I try to live. So are my wordy reviews are interesting for someone? I am not joking. And I am not trying to draw attention to my person, believe it or not. I just have to know am I wasting my time on something that is interested to 1-2 persons? Because if that's so, I'd rather to something more useful.

DEAR MODERATORS, PLEASE, DELETE THIS POST AND ALL SUBSEQUENT POSTS, NOT MY POSTS ALSO, THEY'RE OF NO REAL IMPORTANCE OBJECTIVELY. IN PARTICULAR POSTS 8, 9, 10 & 11. TIME PASSED AND I SEE THIS CONVERSATION "SHOULD I..." AS SHAMELY STUPID.

[Froge]

yes i

[Alex Ros]

I presume it would be right to close the thread. As long as those my over crowded with words and thoughts reviews seems like are not so much interesting to anyone. There's no "...I can not agree on that, because..." or something like "...quite an interesting point of view, but you forgot to mention, that..." or... whatever. My reviews just do not cause any interesting useful conversations. It feels just like I am talking to myself without any response. More of that what I am doing with those reviews could be called just a pure flooding, probably intelligent flood, but flooding is flooding. I do not want it to be that way.