Multiplayer gaming is, and has remained, a staple of the modern entertainment sphere. Since the days of LAN parties hosted in that one guy's basement, to the age of split-screen weekend parties, the ability to get together and compete against friends in some wild and otherworldly setting and fashion has only grown with time. Today, we have mega-multiplayer online titans like Fortnite, Overwatch and Apex Legends hogging the bandwidth, each with millions of players, and all competing for dominance in a market where public interest is the deciding factor in lifespan. I could go on for pages on end about the evolution of online gaming and the cultures and sub-cultures that have risen and fallen because of it, but I won't. I don't like competitive games. I did once, but not so much now. Part of this is just because I'm not the most social person. Competitive games aren't my style; I'd rather fight along side my friends than against them. For someone who's a bit of a perfectionist, what can start as a simple deathmatch can herald a sour mood that lasts all day if you don't win. I know that many will laugh this off, but I don't care. I just want to play games for the fun of it, and the experiences they offer; not for the boasting rights. It's just my personal preferences...but all things aside, there is one reason that multiplayer-centric games aren't all that great, and that's because the moment they ship, the clock starts ticking on their lifespan. Yes, PVP-focused games are born to die, more now than ever before. Many big titles rely on central servers to support their activity, and if that activity drops below a critical threshold, or the money stops flowing, the game goes poof, leaving only happy memories and a sense of having been robbed (which according to this very cool guy, you have been). Many older games don't have this problem, as their devs wisely released the server software to allow for endless replayability, but still, unless you have a very, very tight-knit collection of friends or a clan you're part of, there will inevitably come a day when you close out for the last time, never to return. No amount of bot-matches or side-content can bring back that old feeling, especially when new titles continue to pour out, providing endless distraction. I call them mayflies because they so often are; there to be enjoyed for only a brief time, until interest fades or a sequel arrives (as one almost always does). And here are five that I have personally experienced.
itself on nostalgia, but for a hard-core audience like the one it was trying to sell to, anything new is not something to be appreciated. It didn't help that there already existed another free-to-play game, supported by the same studio no less, that did a better and more period-accurate job of offering a place for arena-shooter fanatics to relive their glory days. Add to this a confusing system of micro-transactions and a bizarre format of allowing people to 'rent' and 'purchase' hero characters that in previous Quake games would've been little more than alternate skins, and you had a recipe for disaster. Really, it's no wonder the game is only getting quarterly updates and a bare trickle of new content. That's not to say the game isn't fun. But first, let's have a little clarification. For those unaware as to what an 'arena-shooter' is, it's a form of FPS game that focuses on speed, player skill and strategy, specifically on controlling key item drops. Unlike many modern shooters that force you to select your loadout prior to entering a fight, weapons and other vital collectibles such as power-ups and health-boosts are scattered throughout the map, respawning on timers which makes it critical for a good player to know when and where to be to acquire the advantage over their opponents. There's more that makes an arena-shooter stand out obviously, but what matters is the three 'S's: Speed, Strategy, and Skill. The winner of any given game will be the one who has the best command of the movement system, the best memory for map spawns and item locations, and the wisdom to combine both to outmaneuver their enemies. Rocket jumping is alive and well in Quake Champions, and still allows the smartest player to pull off bizarre and otherwise impossible kills by bouncing themselves around with explosions if they know how to manage their health and time their shots. It's all in the wrist I've been told. With that in mind, it's fair to say that Quake Champions has room for all three of these. it preserves the classically wonky movement of its predecessors, which led to the emergence of things like 'strafe-jumping' and bunny-hopping to increase momentum, while offering elaborate recreations of classic Quake maps with new high-def coats of paint. The weapon roster has been switched up a little, with the plasma gun of Quake III giving way to the nailgun of classic Quake, while preserving functionality. However, there's also the choice to switch which weapon you start out with, be it a shotgun, light machinegun, or light nailgun, subtly altering things so that every player can more immediately pursue whatever play-style they prefer rather than forcing them to seek out the gun they want right off the bat. This is a minor change though, and does little to alter the overall chemistry of the gameplay loop itself. Gamemodes are more limited than what you'll find on Quake Live, with modes like Deathmatch (all versus all until a player reaches the prescribed score), Team Deathmatch ( the same as deathmatch but team versus team), and Slipgate (a spin on team deathmatch with rounds where each player has one life per round), though more have been added since launch such as Duel (one versus one) and Instagib (deathmatch, but every player has a railgun that kills in a single shot, making for even more frantic matches). Despite this, for the short while I played, it was quite enjoyable. It's fun, fast and frenetic, and while it suffers from the drawbacks of any online-focused title (connection issues, finding a group to play with that won't stomp on you with their vastly superior skill, etc.) it's still a nice way to spend time if you have the partners to play with, and given the game is now free-to-play as previously mentioned, the only barriers to entry are the egregious and byzantine champion system itself and the hardware requirements (which can be somewhat steep seeing as it runs on a hybridized version of the id Tech engine).
which would become the progenitors of the previously-mentioned hero-shooters that now clutter the market. In fact, TF2 has a lot in common with hero-shooters by simple design, and it's not hard to see how the latter emerged from the former. Trading on the simple idea of nine unique classes, distinguished by ability, utility, and not least personality, the game has come far since the days when it was first produced as a mod for the original Quake, a fact made all the more fitting given the first title on this list. I never played much beyond the first few years of its time, but even so, it saddens me to know that, like all the other games mentioned herein, the sun is finally starting to set on this giant of online gaming. Recently, developer Valve Software has announced that it has pulled most of the personnel from its dedicated support team for producing new content in an effort to direct its energy towards newer projects. What this generally means is that new content, the lifeblood of any big online-focused shooter, has likely dried up for good. And once that happens, things generally go downhill. Of course, it's not as simple as declaring the game 'dead' and sticking a fork in it. Like any successful title, even after everyone has left, TF2 will likely live on long past its development cycle, albeit with a higher barrier to entry. Valve long ago enabled the ability for players to publicly host servers, so there's no real danger of a total shutdown like there often is with other centrally-hosted games (an advantage online shooters generally have over their other MMO brethren). In addition, the vast community it still possesses likely means that players will continue to play for another decade or two, and likely even longer. However, as time passes and more people leave, the remaining players will be the most hardcore and skilled, adding to that previously-mentioned barrier to entry. Unless you can get a whole group of friends to join you on word of mouth, getting into an online-focused FPS can be...difficult, especially when you get trounced for the thirteenth time and denounced as a 'filthy casual'. It's a testament to how vital the team medic is that the button to call for him is bound to 'E' by default, making it right next to the one used for moving forwards. This would be great, if it also didn't coincidentally tempt more than a few people to spam it and thus ruin your speakers. Of course the game's mechanics themselves are easy to learn (but hard to master, which contributed to its longevity). Each of the nine classes has their own role to play, with other classes serving as hard and soft counters to them in the hands of a smart player. The Heavy for example wields a minigun, and is generally the damage-dealer, often backed by a Medic who can use his healing medi-gun to grant temporary invulnerability as well as battlefield treatment to his comrades. Together, they can serve as a means of pushing through the enemy defenses, or if needs must, a big, loud distraction. Meanwhile, the Engineer and the Spy serve as eternal foils to one another; the first building support structures like sentry guns and ammo dispensers, the other trying to infiltrate the opposing base and/or sabotage those same structures. In addition, items earned through gameplay for various classes can alter or even totally upend the roles of some classes in a fight, such as the Dead Ringer, which allows the Spy to fake death temporarily to escape pursuit, or the wide range of claymores available to the extremely-drunk Demolitions Man, (Demoman for short), which turns him from a bomb-lobbing public health hazard to a brutal close-range brawler. All of this feeds into the various objective-base game modes, which range from simple capture-the-flag to pushing a payload through enemy defenses to destroy their base. It is, above all else, a game best played with friends, and if you want to get into it, there's never a better time than now, before the inevitable decline sets in. It's also completely and utterly free to play, something that some would say TF2 pioneered when it happened back in 2011. This is assuming of course you don't get sucked into the hat-trading economy, something else the game arguably popularized, leading to the horrible scourge of micro-transactions gamers everywhere must cope with today. But still, this is definitely a game you'll have fun with if you can find a friend or three to join you.
in on the internet-powered shooter craze, with studios rising and falling as they struggled to sell their own twist on the genre. Valve Software made a big splash of its own in those days with the release of the source code for its then-new Source engine, which kicked off even more projects, all trying to outdo each other, whether by design or aesthetics. Among those myriad children spawned by their free-handed approach to content-creation, there was Dystopia; a small, independently-developed title that, much like TF2, began life as a mod. Crafted by a tiny studio called Puny Human and released in 2005, it is still technically active, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future, since while the original developers are mostly gone, having moved on to other projects, a dedicated team still pushes out updates now and then, and Steam serves as an official distributor, making it more 'permanent' than many other indie games of more recent times. But what makes Dystopia special, and therefore still worthwhile you might ask? Well, for one, in an age when the disease of modern-military blandness that has afflicted shooter games for decades still hasn't totally worn off, it stands out with its cyberpunk aesthetic, which as it turns out, isn't just for show. Players are separated into two teams: 'Punks' and 'Corps'; divided by looks and cause, but matched in abilities, and armed with weapons divvied up across three classes (light, heavy, and medium). There is also an array of tactical equipment available for selection, all of which has its uses in the heavily objective-oriented game modes the actions centers on. In this regard, Dystopia bears some semblance to the Tribes series, another big underground hit of that era which placed similar limitations on players. What sets Puny Humans' creation apart however can be summed up in two words (three, if you're being picky): implants, and CyberSpace. The heavy class is beefy, but he's slow and has very little room for implants. Generally the best choice if you're going to try him is something simple like a reflex booster to shorten reload times, or the leg boosters, so you can squash people by jumping on them with your armored bulk. Where class, weapons and equipment add three layers of complexity to the combat, implants add a fourth, offering specific abilities and balanced counters to those same abilities depending on player choice. The amount of hardware you can stuff into your flesh is also limited by class, and thus you are often forced to choose between firepower and flexibility. A person with a cloaking device can become invisible, but must cope with a heavy drain on energy, and the fact that they are not concealed from heat vision. conversely, a person with a Cold Suit is hidden from heat vision, but still a target for someone with a TAC scanner. And this is all just the stuff that goes on in MeatSpace. When you add CyberSpace, it gets stranger. One of the implants, called a CyberDeck, allows players to jack into terminals scattered across the game's maps, and enter an alternate, neon-glo dimension where a canny operator can change aspects of the level or grant offense and defensive advantages to their fellows in the 'real world'. This is incredibly handy, but leaves the user vulnerable while jacked in, and even then, not all CyberDecks are created equal. The Advanced Cyberdeck, which takes up a ton of slots in exchange for digital god-hood, allows the user to do even more, such as lock terminals and kill opposing players through their implants when confronted in the digital realm. Altogether, this makes the highly objective-based modes on offer vastly more interesting, essentially splitting fights between two playing fields. As shooters go, there's not much out there like it, and if you can find a team of friends to join you, I can attest from experience it is a blast to play. Experimenting with different loadouts to find your chosen style is encouraged, and it never gets so complex that you feel overwhelmed by what you can do; an important feature when making a game accessible. Too, there are no overtly overpowered abilities. The cost of implants makes every one a sacrifice to pick when choosing, and thus renders the system a tight, closed and effective one. A good player can achieve much with just a little stealth and team support, and a good hacker can totally flip the battlefield on its head if they know what they're doing. Of all the games on this list, if you play no others, this one at least should be worth at least a little your time. Plus, it's totally free, so there's that.
core of passionate fans remains to preserve it. Since then, despite becoming free to play, it has never managed to garner anything more than a 'mixed' status in terms of reviews on Steam. It's history is ironic, and in the face of modern trends, darkly prophetic. Though hailed as an okay game when it came out, it was nevertheless critically scoured for being 'unfinished' and 'incomplete' (and in my opinion, extremely dull), bogged down in technical issues that made it a pain to play for years afterwards. It's an object lesson in the importance of first impressions really; BRINK failed the first test of any multiplayer game when trying to attract players, and thus has been left with nothing, kept alive solely by morbid interest and a few die-hards who pop in now and again for the heck of it. Nobody cares about BRINK, and it's unlikely anyone ever will again. The real tragedy of it all is, the game itself had a fair bit going for it. The art style, with its mix of pseudo-realism, lanky character models, and clean white lines contrasting against rusting metal and rot, is an engaging one, and some of the costumes are quite creative. The game also features what was meant to be a revolutionary parkour system (though given how finicky it turned out, this can hardly be called a plus). The real shining star of BRINK's squandered potential though is its story, which is tied up in the bland and boring missions themselves. In fact, it might not be an overstatement to say that BRINK was among the first to try and tie its single-player content to its multiplayer aspect so blatantly. And it is a testament to how little the industry has learned that this practice has continued, at the expense of meaningful stories (does anyone even remember that WWI Call of Duty? I know I don't). Set in a not-so distant future, the plot centers around the Ark, an eco-friendly ocean-borne megastructure; a city on the waves, built just in time to see the world collapse from climate-change and global resource conflicts. The narrative follows the intricacies of a building revolution born in the hearts of the 'Guests', survivors who have formed a vast shanty-town out of beached ships and hulks around the fringes of the Ark, and who now form its laboring classes, and the efforts to suppress it by the Founders, who live in a literal ivory-white tower. For a game that sold itself on free traversal and innovative movement, the majority of BRINK's firefights still play out like this. Once a team has a choke point, it's absurdly difficult to dislodge them, and no amount of wall-running will get you through. The imagery and symbolism are on the nose to be sure, but beneath the surface, there's a bit of fairly decent writing. However, none of it is worth slogging through the bland and boring bot-matches you'd need to play in order to reveal it, especially when a synopsis exists on Wikipedia. You play the campaign in co-op of course, but unless you have very dedicated friends, you're unlikely to find anyone else online who isn't on the other side of the planet. Too, the game's competing ideas make it difficult to get a handle on. All the 'classes' on display have only mild benefits, save for the engineer, who is probably the only class you'll feel like playing as, given his ability to seal doors, build turrets, and erect barriers, all of which are critical to controlling the flow of combat. This is ironic, because part of what was meant to make BRINK unique and add a means of countering such choke-holds on the flow of play was the parkour system, marketed as the 'S.M.A.R.T.' system, or smooth movement over rough terrain. It's a big acronym for a big failure, and arguably the most disappointing part of the game. Grappling ledges; sliding; even wall-running; it's all there, and it's all horribly, painfully unpolished. It feels clunky; unbalanced and slow, made worse by the fact that it's chiefly tied to your character's build, something you can't alter once you change it. Additionally. the close quarters of the maps and limited nature of the system end up rendering it virtually superfluous to the actual action. In the end, like so much of BRINK, it just never lives up to its potential. Being fast and agile can't save you from a spray of machine-gun fire here; not like it can in Apex Legends or some other, more recent titles. In conclusion, BRINK is dull, dead and dreary disappointment, even years after its release, and while it might look shiny and white on the outside, just like the Ark itself, it's heart is corroded and unfinished. It may be free to play, but I'd still give it a miss.
prevalent among companies that make multiplayer-centric FPS games, or indeed any kind of online-only IP. The Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises are arguably the most emblematic of it, with new installments to each seemingly every year for the past decade as of this writing. However, a less extreme example can be found in Counter-Strike: Source, which, while not totally deceased like many of Activision's one-pump wonders, is still drifting slowly into the background of history, kept alive chiefly, as ever, by a small core of dedicated fans, as well as devotees of Valve's proprietary Source Engine itself. What happened, you may wonder? The same thing that happens to every older competitive game that shows signs of long-term success: it got a sequel; Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Cursed to live in the shadow of its newer, flasher, and more easily-monetized successor, CS:S has essentially been forgotten except perhaps for its contributions to the development of early meme-culture. Those that still play are hardcore fans, and often organized into clans that compete in self-organized tournaments that are not necessarily welcoming to newcomers (indeed, many are downright toxic, even after all this time). Indeed, in its rise, fall, and entry into gaming afterlife, Counter-Strike: Source serves to illustrate another flaw in games that base their existence solely on competition, or rather, it demonstrates it from a different angle. As technology progresses, tastes change, and trends alter, it is inevitable that a multiplayer-only game will see its user-base decline. However, even if it is successful, there is nothing to save it from being done in by its own creators, leaving it to slide into the dustbin as it is supplanted by a newer, shinier (and not always better) version of itself. Of course, in these days of live-service gaming and perpetual open-beta models of distribution, things are a little more complex, and this sort of scenario is less likely to occur in the same way that it did during CS:S's era. Today, many competitive games go on to last years and years, sustained by content updates that vastly transform them from the state of their original release. However, the fact remains that even the most popular games can end up as a footnote, victims of their own success. The settings available in CS:S are mundane, yet also strangely iconic. A city warehouse; a nuclear power plant; a snowbound office-complex; a nameless town in Afghanistan; they are living proof that level design is an art that extends well beyond the visual. Setting aside the rambling though, none of what I've said is a mark against Counter-Strike: Source itself, which remains fun and enjoyable despite all the wear and tear of the years. It also has a bot-match mode for people who can't find a team to play with, though inevitably this wears stale, as it does in any game that is clearly fashioned to be played by humans against humans, which is why it helps that you can host your own server easily. The game features two primary game-modes, with intricately-fashioned maps that cater to each, focusing on rescuing hostages or defusing bombs if you play the counter-terrorists, or holding hostages and planting bombs if you wanna be the bad guys. Sessions are played in rounds, with sudden-death being quite literal in the case of deciding a toss-up. Each player also selects their arsenal from a range of real-world military tools, with their access being limited by a preset amount of 'money' to spend on equipment at the start of each round, in a way that the creators of Dystopia mirrored in their own game's design when it came to picking implants. A heavy emphasis is placed on accomplishing objectives, with combat itself being swift and decisive, as every weapon does high damage and places a heavy value on player reflexes and accuracy. It's less like the marathon frag-fests of games like Quake and more like football ironically (or rugby if you're not from the U.S.), with action swinging to and fro as both sides struggle for control of the objective in brief, sudden bouts of combat. It's a simple enough design, but with hidden meta-mechanics like any good game, there for anyone dedicated enough to discover them. What really makes CS;S unique though is the mods. Coming from an age when companies were somewhat less cagey and hostile towards fan-produced content, Counter-Strike: Source benefits from nearly twenty years of user-made material to explore and enjoy, ranging from new maps and player models, to weapons, to gameplay tweaks, to whole new modes of play. The library of content out there is staggering in scope, with notable repositories being found on Gamebanana.com and ModDB in particular. And none of this requires you to shell out even a single extra cent, which is probably the biggest and best feature that this old game has over its successor. Want to look like Ronald McDonald? Go ahead; there's a skin out there somewhere. Want to play around on a giant steamship like the Titanic? I guarantee you somebody, somewhere has made it possible. Trust me; there is fun to be had here, so long as you have the friends to join you and the will to delve deeper. WRAP-UP Every game has a shelf-life, but not every game has an afterlife. These brief review are snapshots of the life of a multiplayer-centric game. Quake Champions and BRINK were both, in a sense, stillborn; one spoiled by a legacy it failed to cash in on, the other weighed down by a sloppy release and the burden of unreachable hype. CS;S and TF2, giants in their own time, have endured thanks to their own versatility, but in the end, they too will ride into the sunset, becoming like Dystopia, which never lived its fullest life, but found a niche where it could still please. Together, they will become small, durable knots of experience held together until at last they pass into internet history, who knows how many years from now.
I suppose what I've been meaning to say with all this rambling is that I don't like competitive games for a few reasons. They don't appeal to my preference for cooperation. They seldom offer good narrative experiences (which I value highly), and while enjoyable, you need others to get the most out of them. This last part is the real kicker. An old game is an old game, and might still be fun if you pick it up with an open mind and a pre-existing interest. But an old multiplayer game? How can you ever truly get the full experience, when all the remaining players are tight-knit bands and tribes who've been playing for years, often hostile to newcomers; and that's assuming you can find any at all. No; a good single-player game is timeless...but like so much modern culture, when it comes to multiplayer games? You had to be there.
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So it's been a really messy few years since I started this blog, and no doubt it reflects in my work. Formats have changed along with interests, and while my motivation to continue posting to this place has waxed and waned, it's never fully ebbed. I have no delusions I'll probably never make a career out of games journalism, but all the same, this is the closest thing I have to a portfolio, and as such, I feel it's in my best interest to continue pursuing it.
Now granted, I've never expected this place to become popular, and I still don't. Regular visitation numbers have never breached two-hundred, and I sincerely doubt that will change. However, in the interests of finding a niche and producing my best work, I've decided to lay down a few ground rules as to what to expect going forwards. They are as follows: 1. A NARROWER CATALOG FOR MY PREFERENCES There's no point in trying to be all things to all men. As my tastes have changed, so have my views. As such, they'll be less pieces on games in genres I don't like, and I'll never force myself to play something that doesn't at least tickle my fancy first. I'm sure this won't make for a surge in popularity, but like I said, I never expected to accrue a big fan-base. Honesty is preferable to empty platitudes, something that is entirely too pervasive in big gaming news websites, who these days are frequently little more than extensions of the marketing apparatus for big developers. From now on, the only hype I'll follow will be my own expectations. 2. SHORTER PIECES FOR QUANTITY AND QUALITY Looking back at some of my in-depth reviews, I can't help but feel that many of the longer ones don't speak entirely with my voice. I've asked myself: "Was I padding things out with things I've heard other people say?", and been unable to produce a good answer. Granted, if I have a lot to say on a game, I have a lot to say, but some games just don't require three-page analyses where one is enough. As such, expect a rise in shorter pieces, and even mini- or batch-reviews on some titles. I hope that in this pursuit of shorter and more experimental pieces, I will find that voice I need. 3. MY OWN PERSPECTIVE WILL BE THE FOUNDATION When I began, I tried to be formal. I tried to avoid spoilers and stick to third person, removing myself from the equation in an effort to preserve some strange illusion of objectivity. But I've long since learned that virtually nothing is objective, particularly when it comes to media and art. Different people have different values, and to that end, I will be judging things solely on how much and in what ways I enjoyed them. I'll try to be concise, but also thorough. Expect Final Scores to be replaced by Pros/Cons charts. And furthermore, as a result of this: 4. FREE-FORM PIECES WILL BE MORE COMMON Not everything I post will be a review, or even gaming related (though most of it will). I have thoughts and ideas, which I'd love to express regardless of who's listening. Political outlooks will probably happen, as well as philosophical considerations. I don't pretend I'm a 100% informed individual when it comes to every subject matter, and I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you not to take anything I say as fact. But regardless, I'm going to experiment more with what I write...or at least give it the old college try. WARNING! Introduction It's a generally-recognized fact that we, as a society, have a hard time talking about sex. We all know it exists (usually long before we even know what it's called), but we don't discuss it, we don't analyze it, and we certainly aren't encouraged to try and tell stories about it. This widespread repression, which often extends to encompass even the most ambiguous and innocent forms of sexual expression, has led to a collective knot in our psychic underwear, and it is from the sordid juices that stain that warped tangle of fear and desire that I think Lust for Darkness must've dripped, because I really can't explain its existence any other way. It's a bad game, which promises serious commentary and dark themes on the surface, but sadly seems to have been made by people who only wanted to try and spook the players with images of alien vaginas and sloppy writing (no not that kind you sicko). Whatever happened to him, it was probably more exciting than the experience I had playing this game. Chances are it was probably more painful, but that's not saying much. This is not meant to be an insult to the actual developers by any means (so please excuse my colorful language), because its clear the they tried to do their subject matter justice, what with all the lore and effort they put into building the background of the game's world. But alas, the key plot strokes they rely on (god, the innuendo is just everywhere, isn't it?) fall flat or else feel like they're trying too hard to be shocking, and the whole product is weighed down by the alternately boring and frustrating gameplay, which feels like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but without the polish, proper pacing, sound design, or indeed any part of what made Amnesia so good. It's a depressing disappointment, given the game exceeded it's Kickstarter funding goal by at least a factor of six times, but if you want to torment yourself by playing it, it's available on Steam for $24.99 at the time of this writing. If you want to know why you probably shouldn't bother though, read on... Story Like any horror game, Lust for Darkness places most of its weight on its story. And to be perfectly honest, the story is...not good. To be fair, the opening had promise when I first played it. The shock factor of waking up in a bondage dungeon after apparently being kidnapped is a truly nightmarish scenario. It only gets creepier after you realize the implied cult angle from the object on display. However, after this prologue concludes and the opening titles play, things rapidly slide downhill in terms of quality. The rest of the game has you playing as the husband of the woman from the prologue, who ends up receiving a call from his missing spouse telling him in roundabout terms that she's being held prisoner at a mansion out in the countryside. There's a lot to unpack in terms of problems with what happens next, and how it reeks of a writer who was sadly out of their depth, but I'll do my best to be concise. To its credit, the majority of the story does keep pace with the style and form of most Lovecraft stories. This is not necessarily a good thing, unfortunately, since many Lovecraft stories equate progress with reading unspeakable tomes of forbidden knowledge. There's a lot of reading to be done in this game, with most of the establishing lore for the setting and world being hidden around the environment. Some of it's good, but none of it is particularly 'unspeakable' or unsettling. This is unfortunate, because the main plot isn't much better at keeping the reader engrossed. It relies too heavily on shock value to try and motivate its characters, who often feel flat and unreal in their reactions (though that may sadly be the fault of the voice actors, who are also rather amateurish in their delivery). It's undeniable the game's lighting is quite beautiful. However, no amount of bizarre alien architecture with suggestions of phallic imagery can make up for the ham-fisted plot strokes that drive the main narrative. But the problems run much deeper than dull lore. Halfway through the game, the protagonist discovers that his wife was pregnant when she was kidnapped, and that the evil cult leader not only aborted his unborn child, but then sired a new one by raping his hostage spouse. This is, without a doubt, one of the most horrible things a villain could do. It's vile and reprehensible...and yet it in the greater scheme of the story, it carries almost no weight. There's no buildup, and the delivery is falls flat, consisting of a stilted, uncomfortable conversation between husband and wife. It's barely even brought up in the rest of the game. It's clear that the writer could've learned a thing or two from reading some analyses of Silent Hill 2, which deals with themes of sexual violence and trauma in fashion that is leaps and bounds above what this game tries to achieve. If you're going to introduce rape to your story, especially if said story has an overt focus on themes of sex and horror, there are three words to remember: SHOW, DON'T TELL. In fact, it could be said that the misunderstanding of this simple fact encapsulates everything wrong with Lust for Darkness' plot. I could probably write an entire paper on everything I noticed in hindsight that didn't jive with the game's storytelling goals, but suffice to say, where it was weird, it was largely softcore, and where it was shocking, it was poorly set up and poorly conveyed. The whole project sadly had the stink of a studio who wanted to do big things, but should've run through a few drafts before publishing their work. Sex and horror, when combined correctly, can tell some of the best stories out there, especially when your prime audience is a society where love, gender, and the human body itself are still closeted subjects for many, many people. Alas, Movie Games Lunarium never managed to find that proper blend to make their end product palatable, and so we are left with what can only be called a hot, sticky mess. Gameplay and Design The story isn't the only culprit of course in making this game a failure though. Games in general rely heavily on a balance between interactivity and experience, and nowhere is that more crucial than in games that slide further to one end of the spectrum or the other. An artsy game with frustrating design can still gather a cult following if its writing is good enough. Conversely, a game with a boring or hammy plot can be saved if its core gameplay look is sufficiently addictive. Sadly, Lust for Darkness suffers from the worst of both worlds in this case, as its floppy, twitching plot which never seems to find its pace, is dragged down by a very bland and often frustrating mode of gameplay. The majority of the experience is spent either wandering around looking at everything that can be interacted with for the sake of looking into the lore, or looking at everything that can be interacted with because the puzzle you're being confronted with is so brain-breakingly unintuitive that you HAVE to find a hint or give up and go look for a walkthrough. There's plenty of sexual imagery on display, but it seldom gets much stranger than this. There's a few moments near the end of the game that might nauseate you if you've got a weak stomach, but it's no SAW film, that's for sure. There are parts that involve hiding from monsters of course, because the player needs to face some form of threat if the atmosphere can't delivery. Unfortunately, the stealth system is finicky at the best of times, and the often cramped levels and slow pace of the character themselves makes fleeing and hiding uncertain prospects at the best of times. Being pursued isn't particularly terrifying in any case, which speaks volumes about how unprepared the developers were for a large-scale horror experience. The sound design and music are nothing to write home about either, which might as well be a death-knell for any chance of actually scaring players. A horror game without good sound is three steps down on the road to obscurity, and it takes a monumental effort to overcome that handicap, which devs sadly did not. The worst part of the game might just be the final boss fight (hard to say, given how much of a chore it was up until then; also, a boss fight in a horror game? Come on, man!), which was anticlimactic and downright enraging. When the credits finally roll, it's almost a relief. FINAL VERDICTSex, as ever, is a touchy subject. Confronting it in a serious fashion is often a scary subject, especially given how repressive modern society still is in its discussion. Telling meaningful stories about it is a daunting prospect, and one not lightly approached. Sadly, Movie Games Lunarium did not consider that fact when trying to make Lust for Darkness. It's one thing to try and sell your game with sex appeal (looking at you Haydee), but if you're going to try and scare people with the thought of intimacy, you need to do more than slap a pair of tits on some monsters. Don't get me wrong; there's some decent ideas here, buried under all the half-finished detritus. But until the devs learn from their mistakes, I have to recommend that they stick to shorter, more condensed pieces. It doesn't do to try and rush to third base after all. FINAL SCORE: 3.9/10
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I'm a blogger. I review games, mods, or whatever else I feel like, and voice my thoughts for your entertainment (and my portfolio). Reviews
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