Jed Pressgrove's Reviews
It doesn't ever completely shy away from using filler material after successfully building so much momentum.
Throughout this cynical gaming experience, the message of the show seems clearer than ever: reject dignity or die.
The game places trust in the moral, philosophical, and intellectual response of the audience.
The cluelessness-as-heroism and over-the-top fighting don't fulfill or complement the infectiously positive tone.
The mere suggestion of indie misery will captivate industry insiders and tantalize anyone else who may or may not get what Davey Wreden is going for.
The channeling of art nouveau not only impacts the look of the characters and settings, but complements the curves that fighters draw with the motion of their attacks.
Its anecdotes function as mawkish indicators of social status, as the Internet crowd often forgets that being online is a privilege for more than a few.
Creators like Chmielarz need an obvious symbol of false hope to sell (not articulate) their trendy nihilism that, if anything, should vanish.
If only the developer's care could have graced the poorly drawn cutscenes that lack the vitality of those in 1988's Ninja Gaiden. These sequences don't communicate the emotional sincerity needed to fulfill the potential of a story that humanizes its white-man villain while calling attention to the contemporary impact of his racism.
Neither the artificial screen glare nor actress Viva Seifert's performance lend credibility to the game's lady-psychopath clichés.
The game suggests identity and heroism arise from communal ties as much as they do from individual traits and struggle.
While The Shivah also explores the reconciliation of faith and practicality, its corny climax can't match The Talos Principle's matter-of-fact ending, which argues that our chosen perspective will limit what we discover in one way or another. Thank God the puzzles are worth it.
In a nod to the post-credits gimmick of comic book blockbusters, A Bird Story reveals itself as foreplay for Gao's next game. This shameless preview raises the question of why anyone should take the game's human-animal bonding as anything more than a tease. Earlier in the game, the boy and the bird are launched into space for a close-up of the moon, a shoehorned reference to Gao's To the Moon. Despite its well-meaning qualities, A Bird Story doesn't have the maturity or confidence to inspire much more than crying and buying.
The sorry "story" segments largely amount to random combinations of the four main characters trading bad jokes, such as running the difference between "who" and "whom" into the ground.
There's little of that symbiosis here, as The Evil Within's more serious tone and greater reliance on non-interactive cutscenes leaves the player disengaged from the rollercoaster of action.