With an entry price of $5 the developers humbly invite you to take a dive into their dream and judge it worthy of your time. The sales numbers and, surprisingly, the strong support from the Steam community speak for themselves. This game will not appeal to a massive portion of the gamer population, as it shouldn't have to, but to those who do like it, it's the perfect game. Dontnod know their story storytelling, and here's hoping it's only going to get better from here on out.
While this episode lays a good foundation to the upcoming adventures, it admittedly does little more than introduce the characters which will eventually help/hinder you when you need them most, but that's not to take away from what it achieves. If you love point and click games or narrative-driven games, Life is Strange is one title you will hate to miss out on. For the low entry price of $5 for the first of five episodes you can easily play it and make an informed decision on whether you would like to follow Max on her journey of self discovery. I know I will be.
As puzzlers come, The Talos Principle is certainly the cream of the crop and easily deserves any praise that can be laid at its doorstep. The puzzles can be tricky but are always intuitive, asking questions of you and driving you through the environment. Even the graphics, despite their seemingly conflicting styles, are good enough to draw you in. It's bizarre that the same team who brought us something like Serious Sam could deliver some so cerebral and philosophical, but the team has achieved here is the ultimate collection of logical conundrums.
The crux that comes out of this review is that you are better off waiting for this game to be in sale rather than purchasing it right now, and even then those tired of zombies would be strongly advised to steer clear. Deep Silver has unfortunately overseen the Dead Island series take a serious dip in quality throughout 2014, but we remain hopeful that things will get back on the right track with Dead Island 2.
Our verdict is probably to think long and hard before purchasing. Even though Styx only retails for $30, which Cyanide Games certainly deserve for their hard work in creating an awesome character and a good overall stealth experience, the lack of variety in the environments will really drag at times. Huge stealth fans will get an enjoyable experience out of this, but anyone else likely to get mildly frustrated by the dated gameplay and repetition is probably best off avoiding it.
Abyss Odyssey is definitely up there as one of the indie GOTYs so far, but it has its fair bit of clunkiness too.
So in all, great stealth coupled with awesome voice acting and background score packaged with an amazing end to the Bioshock Infinite story line, we get a true masterpiece and a fitting end to Irrational Games, the studio that was. As long as we are talking about Irrational Games and Ken Levine lets assume a moment of silence to grieve over their closing and to hope that 2K Marin takes the opportunity to create more awesome Bioshock games seriously. We at GD wish Ken Levine "infinite" success with his future story driven adventures.
Overall the story expansion was a welcome addition to Infinite's story line, but the changes made to it are just not enough to characterise it into the wholly different game that some of us were expecting it to be. Seeing a refreshed image of Rapture was undoubtedly awesome, but there just aren't enough opportunities to explore it fully. The stage for the game in the first 30 minutes or so is set like a show that is played in front of you and although you will be mesmerised by it, it is out of your immediate control. The changes made to combat are good but, again, there are just too many things that are the same. The plot of the DLC is to be concluded in Episode Two having been left on a cliffhanger that will have you wishing for more. The expansion will surely be an enjoyable experience for the series' fans, but it also has the potential to become stale for those who have started to tire of the Bioshock formula.