Recent reviews by Alin.

We ALL (Yes, we) bow to our queen Yennefer.

Now this is an insane deal. I've no one to play it in co-op with, but the game is fun. And for 3 EURO? It's literally a steal.

Well, these are nearly 5 hours of my life I'll never get back. I tried so hard to like this game. But there is just something that doesn't feel right to me.
The voice acting, especially for Pierce is good. And I recognize a lot of the other voice actors from the game too, it's fine, really. The cutscenes aren't that good. The graphics aren't that good. I had to do a lot of tweaks to get the game running, by the way.
It's a REALLY slow game. I don't mind talking, but God, IT'S SO SLOW. I forced myself to continue the game because it does look interesting, and I wanted to see Cthulhu!
But as soon as I end up in the hospital, nope, that's it. I uninstalled it after going through so many corridors, and I legit got bored.
I tried so much to like this game, it just kept getting more tedious and boring.
I went on Youtube. Cthulhu only shows up for 1 SECOND, only in the bad ending.

Film Grain, Forced TAA, they remastered the game, improved the textures, upscaled them, only to smear TAA blur all over it. Gaming in 2025 in a nutshell.
Gotta support the current thing.

My review attracts the boot lickers like flies to manure. Love to see it.

This mod reminds me of 2009, when I had my first PC and I could barely run Half-Life 2 in 40 FPS, medium settings at 480P.
Playing HL2 RTX in 2025, and now I'm upscaling said 480P to 1080P on medium settings and receiving 40 FPS on low/medium settings.

2009 🤝🏻 2025 = Can't run Half-Life 2.

Played the game for 10 minutes and I already see a dude's ass on my screen.
My life cannot get any worse at this point.

The Pain Within

Review made after roughly 100 hours, completed the game on all its difficulties besides Nightmare, and got all the achievements.


* What I have liked about the game:


The graphics have aged particularly well. The reflections are pretty good for such an old game. The textures aren't bad either, nothing is ugly or low res. Every single character has a lot of attention put to them, to the character design, and facial animations as well.

The gameplay, as frustrating as it can be sometimes, it can be a very satisfying experience when it works. Shoot an enemy in the leg, it falls to the ground, 3 more enemies right behind him are coming slowly, but in that moment you set the body on fire with a match, killing 4 enemies instantly. It's nothing complex, but it is fun for what it is, the guns feel good, especially after you upgrade them a bit, especially the Agony crossbow. So satisfying to shoot an electricity bolt, stun 6 enemies and then set them on fire. The shotgun is 99% going to throw the enemy like it's nothing.

The stealth is also fairly good and fair, never felt like the enemies were unfairly spotting me, even on Akumu.
I prefer stealth than going guns blazing, and this game is perfect for both choices. It feels so rewarding stealth killing everyone because the enemies are much more unpredictable than in the sequel, you never know when they will turn around.
Also, the bottles? I finally realised on my second run I could use them to stun enemies by throwing them in their faces. But once I learned it, I abused the Hell out of those bottles.
Once I had no ammo on me, and a Taken was chasing me, I grabbed a bottle, threw it on her face, stunned her, and killed her. Then used her body to kill 2 more enemies by lighting her on fire. That's what I'm talking about! It's a constant loop of stealth, shooting and managing your resources. It's never getting boring.

The story... Is pretty good. The game is not scary AT ALL. As much as it tries, it's not scary. But it doesn't have to be in order for the story to be good. I really enjoyed it. It felt mysterious, and confusing at first. It was weird, extremely over the top at times, but it was never boring. The characters kept me engaged in the story, I was looking forward to see more.
NOT OF YOU JOSEPH, EAT MY DI**.
Nevertheless, it's an interesting story. I can't talk much about it because while I liked it, I don't have much to say about it.
I like most characters as well, but none of them made me invested in their personal life or story. I like Tatiana the most to be honest.

So I'll talk instead about the monsters, bosses and their amazing designs!
The Taken are basic zombies, I don't pay much attention to them. The bosses though... Laura!
Laura was absolutely insane. The amount of detail put in her, the scream, the blood flowing from corpses every time she appears on the screen, the feeling of anxiety when you hear her breathing close to Seb, while not having any stamina left to run, knowing I'm in the most poetic way, fuçked. This game didn't scare me, but every time Laura was chasing me it was actually the only time I felt some imminent danger and anxiety. She's one shot kill. She bonks you to death.
The Keeper was interesting, basically a huge dude with a Safe head. Cool design, cool enemy, the music it plays while fighting them is making them a lot more threatening than the fights themselves. But again, it raises a lot of tension, while they are not that difficult to fight, they can make your life difficult and surely leave an impression on you.
But still, Laura best girl.

The last thing I will praise is the Akumu mode. Call me a masochist, but the most fun I had in this game was when I played on the highest difficulty.
It teaches you first of all to respect every enemy. Even those brainless zombies that are easy to deal with on every other difficulty. Why? Because a zombie, a poor stupid zombie can kill you in one hit. So every move has to be more calculated. I too thought Akumu will not be as hard as it's being talked about, I got quickly humbled. It annoyed me. Frustrated me. But also made me extremely satisfied after each encounter, which could've killed me, I got out alive! And more than that, I also defeated everyone.
It forces you to be better. And when an enemy is actually dangerous to you, it brings more satisfaction after you beat it, rather than killing it in 2 seconds because you're so overpowered on the other difficulties.
And I won't pretend I'm a pro at this game. I'm not. But I got better at dealing with the enemies and being more patient.


What I disliked about the game:


It is an utter janky mess at times. Unresponsive. Imagine trying to push a barrel towards an enemy but in that moment Seb decides to pick up green gel. The aim camera is abysmal. The default fov is horrendous. Basic movement is extremely slow and janky, it has input lag. You have no idea how many times I died because the game simply didn't register my actions. It feels like a console game so much. And that's not a good thing.

Sebastian has the default speed of an old man with heart failure. He cannot run for more than 5 seconds. HOW DID HE MAKE IT AS A DETECTIVE WHEN HE HAS THE STAMINA OF AN OVERSIZED BODY POSITIVITY ACTIVIST?!
And that's not a problem, you can upgrade. BUT, BUT, but, the game has an achievement for not using any upgrades the entire playthrough! So playing with the default speed made me reconsider my life choices.
It's stupid, doesn't make sense, it's annoying, and I hate it.

But I don't hate that, more than I hate you, Joseph. You useless moron. The worst, the most useless companion in gaming. He's literally only coughing the entire game, that's his only thing! The only thing of value he does is putting my gun at his head, and finally putting my suffering to an end. But even that he's not capable of doing.
I hate him. He made me fight with a zombie wolf and I had only 5 bullets in my revolver! Why? For his glasses! Why does he need glasses? He cannot seehis own incompetence even with glasses on.

My biggest problem with this game is how cinematic it is. Meaning, it focuses more on cutscenes and less on gameplay. Sometimes you play for 5 minutes before another cutscene or unskippable scene plays out, with Seb being startled for the 99th time doing the same animation with him backing down and looking left and right. That animation plays dozens of times, and it's like 5 seconds. Slow walking segments. Where you're forced to listen to exposition and do fück all. There is no reason to force your players to listen to your cutscenes. The skip button should be optional for everyone. This game does not respect your time.
I was worried I would not finish the game under 5 hours to get my speed run achievement because the game does not stop with these annoying cinematic moments where you're forced to stay put and listen.
This game is meant for multiple replays. The Devs made it that way. Then why not make the cutscenes skippable after you beat the game? I don't want to see Seb in the same forced 2 minute walking sequence for my 4th time playing this game. There is no reason to have them forced. It's so frustrating. I just want to play the game, not look at cutscenes. I want to do something, shoot, explore, shooting Tatiana in the face with my magnum, all normal stuff. But nope, fùck you, Alin, sorry to interrupt your movie with 5 minutes of gameplay in between! UwU
Make me play Akumu with no upgrades, and I'll be happier than seeing walking sequences again.


Overall, the most flawed masterpiece I ever played. And yes, a masterpiece. Because it's so good. When it works, it's amazing. But when it doesn't, you start noticing all the flaws.

https://eo.steamhost.cc/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3362153122

I was about to make a racist joke but Steam would ban me so thank you for the free big black c- bird.

Ash is hot, and I'm tired of pretending she isn't.

The Consequence of watching Dexter, is that now everytime I hear Kidman talk, all I could hear is Debra Morgan.
If someone ever decides to remake this game, I beg you, please use Jennifer Carpenter to voice even Rubik for all I care, I would NOT mind, bro.