Recent reviews by Venser

Loved the game. Took me a bit over 6 hours to finish it and I think it's the right length for this game. The pacing is great except in the middle where you have to keep fixing the generator and you start to ask yourself "What's even the point of this?" but it all comes nicely together at the end when they directly address it in the story. And the story itself was fine but the thing I liked about it, it did the cosmic horror right. And the whole game felt like playing through a movie because it was so focused and the acting was good.

It's basically The Thing on an oil ring (even the protagonist's name McLeary is similar to Kurt Russel's MacReady) minus the paranoia. Instead of an alien posing as human, there's some kind of growing presence infesting the ship and changing the crew members. The flesh growing between the walls of the rig reminded me of biomass in System Shock 2.

The graphics are top level, the environments are full of detail and the monster animation is great. Like I already mentioned, the acting is very good for a video game. The dialogue and the banter between workers felt real and they speak Scottish with so much slang that you'll have to rely on English subtitles for translation lol. You'll interact with a handful of characters throughout the story but I only cared for one of them- your best mate Roy. Expected he would turn into a monster at the end and fighting him would be heartbreaking but that never happened. Perhaps a missed opportunity. You see your wife in the flashbacks but she always acts like a total ♥♥♥♥♥ so I didn't get why he wanted to go back to her so bad, I thought the monsters were a pleasant company in comparison. Such a weird decision to put happy memories where she was actually somewhat charming only at the very end of the game.

The sound design is fantastic. They built a miniature oil rig to capture the sounds of the environment. The cries and the screams of the monsters are creepy as hell and getting chased by them was nerve wracking at times. But after sneaking around them for a while and playing hide and seek, the scare factor began fading away.

The game is extremely linear and there's no room for exploration. Pretty much every door that you don't need to go through right this very moment will be locked. I thought the use of the color yellow to guide you worked perfectly in this case as that's a color heavily used on the real oil rigs in similar fashion so it's actually subtle but then they kept adding yellow paint and yellow towels hanging out of the hiding spots and it became annoying and immersion breaking instead. There's a constant feeling that the devs are holding your hand throughout the game, even solving puzzles for you. You see a typical looking puzzle in this genre and it seems like you're gonna have to figure it out but it is just window dressing. The solution to the problem is always right in front of you, and all you have to do is press interact and the character will solve it for you. . It would be much more satisfying if we'd have to engage our brains a little. A couple of simple Frictional style puzzles would do wonders for this game. As it is, it seems like the devs have no faith in the players.

Everything you do in the game is sort of realistic so despite of all the supernatural stuff, I only had to suspend my disbelief during some of the platforming sections. There were a couple of jumps that I don't think even the best parkour athletes could make - you'd break your arms catching yourself while dropping from such heights. And this guy starts breathing heavy if you run for just 4 seconds but at the same time he has incredible agility, upper body strength and endurance to climb for hours.

There were a couple of scenes where the sights of eldritch horrors actually looked very beautiful and awe inspiring (accompanied with music, which I only really noticed during those scenes). These were some of my favorite moments.


For me it's 9/10 despite how damn linear it is. If you're into cosmic horror, you will love this game.

+ setting and the atmosphere
+ cosmic horror done right
+ realistic visuals and fantastic sound design
+ great acting and believable characters
+ good pacing
- too linear, almost on rails
- doesn't require any thinking


EDIT: In the latest patch they added a toggle for reducing the yellow markers.

Pretty much the only active arena FPS right now.

E3 got cancelled due to pandemic but Devolver brought us video game convention in a video game form. You can walk around the area and check out neatly designed gaming booths that play trailers for the upcoming games. Without the real life constraints, the designers were able to go wild with the booth design so you can see the monster from Carrion hanging from the ceiling or visit a shrine with a waterfall from the Shadow Warrior. There are some light gameplay elements such as sneaking around and disabling security bots, avoiding traps and solving very simple puzzles. Special collectible items are scattered around the convention that unlock info about yet unannounced games. I've noticed a couple of empty booths with monitors showing static so I expected they would showcase these games on a second playthrough once you unlock everything but no, all you get is some concept art during the ending screen. Wasted potential. The game is badly optimized and lacks the basic mouse options (can't even adjust sensitivity) but I like it for what it is and I applaud the idea. Hope there's gonna be another one next year regardless of the pandemic state.

Penumbra: Overture is a Lovecraftian horror adventure that creates horror throught atmosphere rather than jump scares. It uses physics based interaction where you mimic real life movement with a mouse, which results in a very natural interaction with objects but terrible combat. The bad combat is somewhat intentional as you are meant to feel weak and volnurable and try to avoid monsters rather than fight them. All puzzles in the game are logical and generally well done. The problem is that the monsters aren't scary or imaginative, instead they just become annyoing as you encounter them over and over again throughout the game. The story doesn't have a closure, it continues in Penumbra: Black Plague.


+ Physics bases interaction
+ logical puzzles
+ exciting chase sequences
+ good atmosphere

- unscary monsters
- combat (kind of)

Full review: http://gamingcatchup.blogspot.com/2018/03/finished-penumbra-overture.html

Quake Live is somewhat modernized and (arguably) improved version of Quake III Arena. It is a skill based shooter with incredibly satisfying dynamic movement system. Out of all arena FPS games it has the largest playerbase so if you like those kind of games, go for it!

Life Is Strange is really enjoyable game with a great atmosphere, likable characters, awesome soundtrack and choices that have consequences. Starts somewhat innocent but halfway through it gets really dark and turns into something like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This is episodic game done right.

Pros & cons:

+ choices and consequences
+ sense of mystery
+ heartbreaking moments
+ great soundtrack

- at times cringeworthy dialogue
- multiple characters voiced by same actors