Vaporum: Lockdown Reviews
Vaporum: Lockdown is quite an interesting take on Bioshock, with insanely hard puzzles, uninspiring plot, and boring enemy designs. But given how rare the setting is, it's not like you have a lot to choose from.
Review in Russian | Read full review
As a grid-based, first-person, action/adventure RPG, Vaporum: Lockdown offers plenty of gameplay elements to keep you busy. The dungeon-crawling game play is straightforward and not overly complicated, despite a good number of puzzles sprinkled in. In short, this is a solid prequel to the original Vaporum. Have fun exploring.
Overall this game offered a fun little story that expanded and continues on from its predecessor ‘Vaporum‘. The dark environment of the game works well with where the random enemies sprout from. The only thing that really bothered me with this game, is that there were random holes in the wall or pitfalls with spikes at the bottom that really didn’t have anything to do with the rest of the game. An easy fix for this would have been instead of spikes, putting unused electricity or overused batteries that spark and electrocute.
With its original mechanics and a big dose of puzzles, Vaporum: Lockdown not only revives the dungeon crawler genre, but pushes it to the next level.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
The game is really good and makes a good name for its predecessor. Vaporum: Lockdown offers a good story in a nice graphic design. However, the large number of items and equipment combined with the solution of various puzzles will also impress, which will torment the cerebral threads. At certain stages, however, the piecemeal movement with the controls is a bit chaotic and can end in death with hasty keystrokes.
Review in Czech | Read full review
Vaporum: Lockdown should satisfy those looking for a first-person dungeon crawler with a unique aesthetic – but only if you can get past its shortcomings.
Vaporum: Lockdown creates a nice sense of isolation and is a fun experience, despite some frustrating puzzles along the way. The presentation is solid and the progression elements are rewarding, even if the combat itself can be slightly repetitive after a time. Vaporum: Lockdown made a great initial impression on me, though by the time I got into the title’s later content, I was less enamored with it overall.
The term “grid-based” often brings up feelings of top-down RPGs or turn-based RTS titles. The ridged movement of these genres offer a somewhat tactical style of gameplay as your team moves between each tile on the map. Heading further back into gaming history, the grid style was fairly common in older PC titles – mainly games they allowed you to play is School. These educational games would often see you traversing a dungeon within a first-person viewpoint whilst solving reading puzzles or the dreaded mathematical questions. Vaporum: Lockdown is one of these games.
Vaporum: Lockdown offers a well-made, compact dungeon crawling experience with enough content to keep any RPG fan interested — it’s just a shame that it does so little to stand out amidst its peers.
Vaporum: Lockdown provides a fresh new take on tile based dungeon crawlers of old. The steampunk setting, as well as deep progression, enhance the already fluid combat to create a unique game that demands multiple playthroughs. While it can have moments of frustration, there’s some great fun to be had here. RPG fans may want to look into the game if they’re looking for something different, but nostalgic.
I enjoyed the tone of Vaporum Lockdown. The story was fantastic and it’s been a good while since I was this immersed into a dungeon crawler. I think the lack of replay value does somewhat hurt it a little and the presentation could stand to be improved a little bit but I wholeheartedly recommend Vaporum Lockdown to anyone remotely curious in a more narrative-focused dungeon crawler.
Vaporum: Lockdown offers us a new story, but told without frills, through texts, audios and some dialogue. It is not worth it, in any case, to acquire the game just for its history. Nor does it offer hardly any news and its humble origin is noticeable. The developer has gone to ensure that it has already been very continuous. Which is not necessarily bad. If we liked the first installment, this one will too, as long as we don't expect any revolution but more of the same with the same invoice.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The gameplay doesn’t change much from the earlier game in the series.
Players who are in search for a satisfying first-person dungeon-crawling experience will find themselves at home with Vaporum: Lockdown. Surrounding a somewhat by-the-numbers story is an enjoyable combat system that keeps a constant sense of progression and multiple puzzles that will test anyone’s mettle, all immersed in a steampunk-inspired setting.
While it may act as a prequel to the original, Vaporum: Lockdown is an excellent return to the Arx Vaporum tower. Capitalizing on the features of the original while also making some minor adjustments to how you interact with the environment, this was hard to put down as I tried my best to help Ellie on her journey to escape this scientific wonder turned deathtrap.
Considering that Vaporum: Lockdown was firstly meant to be an expansion to the base game, Fatbot Games achieved impressive results on enhancing a familiar structure with better narrative, more build variety and refined enemy encounters. It will be a great addition to anyone’s library that’s very into dungeon crawlers.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review