Humble Indie Bundle #4 Is Live!

As it happens, it's the time of sharing, and The Humble Indie Bundle strikes with number 4 and immensely great lineup of games.

For the low low price of 5.00$ (by the time of writing) you get access to these games: Gratuitous Space Battles, Cave Story+, Jamestown, Bit.Trip Runner, Super Meat Boy, Shank and Nightsky HD, completely DRM-free and on Mac, Windows and Linux! You also get Steam-keys for these games, and if higher powers have mercy, also on Desura. If you pay less than the average, you won't get access to GSB and Cave Story+.

What are you waiting for? GO!

Solium Infernum: Rectification announced! (PC/Mac)

So, there'll be a new free expansion pack for Solium Infernum. Includes lots of stuff, like proper expansion packs should, like new legions, praetors, maptype, and so on. Read more from the Cryptic Comet-blog. http://www.crypticcomet.com/blog/?p=626

To Reign in Hell - A Solium Infernum AAR Part I (PC/Mac)

Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here!

Hello, and welcome to Hell. I will be your host for tonight, and quite a few nights after this one. Oooh, did I just hear someone ask "what is Solium Infernum, o' good host"? Well, my good friend, let me tell you. Solium Infernum is a turn-based strategy game about Hell. Conquering and reigning in Hell, to be precise. This, however, is not a review on Solium Infernum. This is an AAR, or "after action report", detailing my adventures in Solium Infernum. A review will follow after the AAR is completed. Every part of AAR will consist of 10 turns, which means that there will be around five or six parts. If you are interested or bored in the meantime, feel free to read an excellent AAR from the fellows of Rock, Paper, Shotgun called Gameboys From Hell. This AAR is still being played with some nice fellows from the aforementioned RPS-forums, so don't expect updates too often.

Turn 1

What a handsome fella.

What you see above, is the "avatar" that I will be playing with. Pretty well-rounded by all means, but not excellent at anything. Three charisma will ensure that I will get a steady flow of Tribute cards to keep my game going on, and two cunning means that I can pretty easily raise it to four to gain not only extra order slot, but also some nice tricks up my sleeve. Duke of Hell ensures me some influence in Hell. My public objective is Lust - no reprecussions if I fail to satisfy the objective, and if I do succeed in my objective, I gain lots of prestige, which is needed to win in this game. No perks, as they are often too costly, or when they give me points for creation, the drawbacks are too heavy.

The usurpers to the throne of Hell

Here we see our contestants for the skullthrone of Hell - me, the ever-so-lovely Sythiese the Sordid, Understairs Man, a certain special Jon Irenicus (you can read his AAR of this same game here), The Bored One and Larence. Larence. What kind of name is Larence? For an usurper of Hell, for Abyss' sake! Pfft. He should be called "Larence the Lich" or something like that. Now he is Larence the Guy-From-Next-Door-Who-Stays-Up-All-Night-Playing-Video-Games. Sheesh.

Here is where we start. The red dominion and legion is mine. To north lies The Woods of Suicide, a Place of Power. To south, Sythiese. To east, Jon Irenicus. To north-west, Bored One. I hope that I can reach the Place of Power before Irenicus does - better yet, I hope he tries to take control of some else PoP. Sythiese and Bored One will likely busy themselves with much closer PoPs and just expanding their dominions. I order my bodyguard legion to move forwards, towards the Woods of Suicide, and with the other order slot I have, request Tribute from my lowly minions.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. I started the game as a regent, which means that I get to draw one Event-card, and of all the phases, my actions will be done first. What is an Event-card, you ask? Well, Event-cards are powerful cards which may turn the table of the game completely - such as invoking a crusade against Heaven, or closing the mouth of Hell, which means that nobody can get tribute from his/her minions. What card did I draw? I'm not going to tell, not yet at least. ;)

Turn 3

Where did he get that GOLEM? Damn!

To Abyss with Irenicus. He was faster, and claimed the Woods of Suicide to himself. This is not a good sign for me - I have no steady source of Prestige, which is required for all diplomatic actions (such as demanding resources, which is a prequisite for a casus belli). And on top of all this, I have no chance to reach the PoP next to Bored One's border, since he has blocked my access there. I'm stuck between three great powers, and I am likely the first one to be eaten, if I can't play my way out of this. I decided to place a bid on Haagenti on the Bazaar. Haagenti is one of the mightiest Praetors in all Hell, and is likely to crush any given opponent in a duel. If I can get my hands on Haagenti, I can start extorting Irenicus for tribute and Prestige, which I so sorely will be needing.

Turn 4

Did I already mention that I hate Irenicus' guts? That bastard somehow topped my offer for Haagenti, and now has the mightiest Praetor in Hell. Blast and damnation.

What will follow, I think, is this - Irenicus will make demands of me. If I refuse, he will start duel with me (or maybe he'll try to assault my legion). If I succumb to his demands, I lose prestige to the point, when I have no teeth and no power to start any diplomatical initiatives. Isn't this just bloody wonderful? So, I decide to try to hire another Praetor, and increase my tribute.

Ah, yes, the duels. Let me tell you a bit about them. They are a way to satisfy a Vendetta. Vendettas can be claimed if someone insults you, or if someone refuses to succumb to your demands. If you don't claim a vendetta, you lose prestige. If you claim Vendetta, you must accomplish your objectives (such as conquering X cantons or, in the case of duels, winning the duel) to reclaim your Prestige and the same amount of Prestige from the receiving end of the Vendetta.

Turn 5

Did I mention that Irenicus is a huge dick?

Unsurprisingly, Irenicus demands Tribute cards from me. That is all right by my book, part of the game and all that, you know. But then he goes and insults me. Insults. Me. What an ass. So rude. Tchk-tchk. Not very nice, now was it?

My brave toad-warrior

Here is my brand new Praetor, Orias. Ugly as sin, but that's how you get those bloody toadmen. And they do smell quite bad, thanks for asking. Now, he might be able to win Haagenti in a duel, if I play my cards right and luck favors me.

I trust you, my brave toadman.

Turn 6

I refused to comply to Irenicus' demands. This turn Irenicus must decide whether he will let the Vendetta die (quite unlikely), or if he will claim a Vendetta and with what terms.

As we can see, Irenicus has moved his legion away from our border. At this point it would be very, very stupid to assume that he wants an armed conflict. A duel will follow soon, I believe. Nevertheless, I decided to place a bid on an artifact in the Bazaar. Hellfire Ballista.

Turn 7

A beatuy, isn't she?

Hellfire Ballista. Even the name alone invokes a sense of something terrible, something powerful. And by the Abyss, isn't it powerful. Not only does it add +4 to my ranged stat for a legion of choice, but if I succeed to do damage with it, it is effectively doubled. A weapon to fear, indeed. And she is mine.

What else... unsurprisingly, Irenicus decided that we shall meet at the fields for a duel. Somebody has also bought Temeluchas from the Bazaar. A worrying turn, as Temeluchas is the second most powerful Praetor in Hell, when it comes to duels. Hopefully Irenicus didn't buy him, I wouldn't want him to have all the cards. Next, preparing for the duel.

Would you look at that tactic? Sweet mercy.

Like so. I expect that Irenicus will strike with full force the first phase, after which he'll take a backseat, when I'll strike. After that it's just chipping away health. If everything goes well.

The current standings in Hell

As we can see, there's alot in game for this duel. The winner claims all 16 points of prestige, making him/her a poweful player in the game. Loser will be in quite a bad position. I fear the worst.

Turn 8

Damn. I hope you enjoy the Abyss, Orias.

Orias has been defeated. He was of no match against Haagenti. I'm in pretty weak position now - only one point of Prestige, and no means of increasing my Prestige. I am one of the least influential beings in Hell now. Hopefully that will guarantee me some peace until I can figure some way out of this mess. Hopefully.

Turn 9

Go to Hell, Irenicus. Oh wait.

Irenicus taunts me. What a dick. Also, Larence the Guy-From-Next-Door has brought some demands against me. 3 Tribute Cards. Since we share no border, he is most likely prepared for a duel. I think. I have very little Tribute as it is, I don't think I want to give Larence any of those. You can stick them up where the sun won't shine, love.

Meanwhile, I will try to stock up on Tribute, to increase my stats and gain me some extra order slots. I need them desperately.

Turn 10

Testament of Tyrants, property of The Bored One

The Bored One, my dear neighbour, has conquered the Testament of Tyrants, a Place of Power. As it happens, it lies just next to border of Sythiese the Sordid. This might prove to be interesting. Conflict between the two will follow rather soon, I believe. And if I play my cards right, I can benefit from it greatly. Better keep an eye out for those two.

Larence now has grounds to claim a Vendetta on me. I fully expect him to do so, unless he plans to let it die and see me begin harassing Irenicus. Very, very, very unlikely, so I'd better stock up for a duel. And, this is the last turn to set my threat list.

Here is our current standings. I decide to leave my threat list as it is - Irenicus will most likely be the one who I will face in the field of combat, and I have no doubts that I might battle everyone else - Larence seems to be the least likely candidate, even with his current demands on me.

Oh dear

A little surprisingly, it wasn't Irenicus that leads the statistics, but Sythiese. He has a horribly, horribly strong bodyguard-legion. Even though one could win it in the ranged-phase of combat and deal some damage, the legion's comeback on melee and infernal would be horribly, horribly strong. Better keep that in mind, I don't want to risk combat against that beast.

Portal 2 (PC) (single-player)

So, Portal 2 came out a little while ago, preceded by Valve's promotional ARG, in which 13 indie games were on sale on Steam and received extra content and crypted messages and all that mumbo jumbo and whoop-de-doo and promises that the game could be released earlier (well, it did, if I remember about 7 hours earlier than destined release time). But all this aside, what was this anticipated game like?

Please do note, that all following is written solely on the basis of single-player campaign


Gameplay
Portal 2 is a sequel (GASP!) to a little 2-4 hour puzzle game, that was released alongside Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2 and its two episodes in a nice gamepack known as The Orange Box. The gameplay mainly consisted on playing with portals, through which player could go. Say, you place one portal on your living room's wall and the other to your bedroom's wall, you could walk through the living room's portal and you'd be in your bedroom. And you can take stuff with you through the portal, which makes things a bit more curious. And, even further to make things more interesting, your inertia would be conserved when you go through portal. What does it mean? What goes in fast, comes out of the other one fast. So, the original game was played pretty much through these concepts, plus lasers, of course. And robots, that try to shoot you, but since they can't move, they could be easily knocked down and so on.

The sequel, of course extends on these principals, so everything that was in the original game is still in and a lot is added. These include such things as springboards (they send stuff flying), different gels/paints (blue paints make stuff go bouncing, orange lets you move really fast, and if you paint wall white, you can place portals there) and pull/push streams and solid light bridges(!). These offer a very large repertoire to create mind-bending puzzles.

Well, as in puzzle games things usually go, you start with a few basic things and start to build up to them to create harder and harder puzzles, and so is in Portal 2 also. The thing is, usually you should go with this ever-increasing difficulty/tricks to keep things fresh, but Portal 2 stumbles in this from time to time, not too often though. Sometmies I just went mad when I couldn't find a way to progress, and it was something as simple as "jump pretty high from here", as if difficulty was suddenly reversed.

Visuals
The game has a really, really good visual style and runs great on older machines even though it looks rather good. Animations remind me often of Pixar-movies, and that is a compliment. The game is nice to look at and most of the time, visuals give you a good clue what is your target.

Level design
The game (still) takes place in Aperture Science's research facilities. A lot of time has passed since original Portal, and vines and other plants have grown all around the facility. The first third or half takes place in these areas, and is pretty much the best areas of the game, so when you play the game, do take your time and look around to find all kinds of neat hidden stuff.

Then comes the chapters 6-8. Oh boy. Somebody dropped the ball here, and hard. What was a leisurely puzzle game, becomes a frustrating pixel hunt with repetive puzzles. I could've tolerated this, but it was absolutely horrendous and I spent about half of my playing time stuck on those chapters. To make things worse, the environment is really, really bland and boring ruins with pretty much nothing to see.

Writing
Portal 2 isn't really heavy on the story, but it has more of it than original Portal, which introduced us GlaDOS, the murderous and testing-obsessed AI with sarcastic comments. In Portal 2, GlaDOS has somehow lost most of her/its charm and turned just really hateful with very little (good) sarcasm. Luckily, around midpoint of the game her/its writing gets better and it's actually nice to listen to her/it.

Of course, Portal 2 introduces two other characters - Wheatley, the well meaning joke-cracker AI and Cave Johnson, the long since passed away founder of Aperture Science. Though Wheatley tolds jokes constantly, it is unfortunate that they rarely really hit the spot. On the plus side, the worst jokes aren't all that bad, but aren't really great either.

Cave Johnson is introduced around the midpoint of game (chapter 5 or 6 if I remember correctly) and he simply has the best writing in the game, cracking really good jokes and being just a manly man. He is never seen beyond some paintings and portraits, and his voice comes from old recordings that play as the player makes his way through old rooms of Aperture Science facility.

Main gripes
Portal 2 is a good game, without doubt, but I'd like to address some of my main annoyances.
1. Loading screens
There are loading screens between every room, and they aren't those barely noticable loading screens from Half-Life 2. No, these take the whole screen, and really break your immersion. And it is really bad at the first third of the game, when rooms are small and simple, and you spend about 1/3 of your time watching the loading screen and 2/3 of the time playing. Luckily, later on, the loading screens get rarer and rarer. But still, I can't wrap around my mind, who thought that it was a good idea to put a loading screen in the middle of an intense chase. Really.

2. The middle part of the game
It has the best writing (thanks to Cave Johnson), but on the other hand, the level design is the worst found in the game. If it were merely ok, I'd just shrug my shoulders and move on, but no. It is absolutely horrendous. Old gray walls everywhere and very, very little indication where to go. A game that has held you from hand to that point and then just throws you out with no point to go is rather bad thing, in my opinion. Your mileage may vary, but I didn't find pixel hunting and repetive puzzles good.

3. The length
It took me about 6 or 7 hours to complete the single player campaign. Not really long, when you think about it, and I spent about 2,5-3,5 hours on chapters 6-8. If you don't get stuck there, 5-6 hours will probably be rather close to how long the game is. And by saying game, I mean single-player campaign, there is also co-op campaign. When I get the time, I'll give it a shot.

4. The menus
The menus are for some reason really unintuitive to navigate with mouse, and I found myself cursing when I clicked the third time off and got an explanation what anti-aliasing does instead of setting it. Luckily I didn't need to spend a lot of time there, so the menus are a very small offender.

Overall
It's a good game that has some noticable flaws - okayish writing, loading screens bloody everywhere, the absolutely horrendous middle part and short length of single-player campaign. If I'd have to give it a 'score', it would be probably a solid 8 out of 10.

No screenshots because I can't find where they were saved. But I believe Google can help you to find videos and pictures of the game if you're interested to see more.

Amnesia - The Dark Descent: Justine (PC)

So, Amnesia got an expansion as part of the Potato Sack-Valve ARG-thingy. It's not really long, but you can get it for free. At least on Steam it was automatically updated, I don't know if that's the case if you bought Amnesia straight from Frictional Games. But, let's cut to the chase. Is it any good?

Still not for children.

Why, yes it is. I'd say that it is overally far more scary than the whole of Amnesia itself (maybe excluding the prison). This time you don't play as Daniel from the original game, but as a woman who wakes up in a strange dungeon with a sight of a creepy monster and sharing the cell with an eerie gramophone of sorts, and a voice telling you that there's a trial ahead. What follows is a Saw-esque horrorshow, where you can either kill or save three persons.

You poor bastard, if only
you knew what's gonna happen

There's only one monster in this 'episode', and he wasn't in the original game. Oh yes, it is a he, and a human, which, in my opinion, makes him only more scary. There's nothing quite as creepy as trying to stay hidden and listen to him yell "I CAN HEAR YOU. I WILL KILL YOU BITCH". The reason why he yells that is revealed during the episode, and the story altogether is rather nice, though the ending is, to say at least, nonsensical.

Oh yes, the episode also features permadeath, meaning that should you die at any point of game, it's game over and you must start over. You can not save at any point of the episode, but as the episode takes about 20 minutes to one hour to complete, it is allright and makes the atmosphere all the more oppressive.

Amnesia - The Dark Descent (PC)

Oh god, here we go

So, pretty much everyone and their grandmother have heard of Amnesia, the allegdely most horrific game in existence. You have probably seen some hilarious videos on YouTube about players losing their, um, self-control while playing the game. Taking place in Prussia some time around 1830-1840 in an old, worn-down castle it has a great setting for a moody adventure. Made by a Swedish company known as Frictional Games, who are known from their previous Penumbra-games. So, how does Amnesia fare?

Gameplay

Disgusting

As you might know, there is absolutely no means of combat in Amnesia. Well, not for you at least, the enemies can easily tear you to pieces. So, what do you do? You stick to the shadows and if that fails, you run as fast as you can. Penumbra-games had a good physics engine, and so does Amnesia, so you can pretty freely pick stuff up, rotate it as you wish and throw it around. Most of the puzzles revolve around this, much like in Half-Life 2 of the Penumbra-games. Puzzles include stuff like opening and closing vents, placing gears to their places and so on, nothing too complicated. While in darkness, you gain a slight 'night-vision', but it isn't all that good and fancy as you might think, but it really enhances the atmosphere.

As said above, your only way of self-defence is hiding, but this has a catch - should you linger too long in the shadows, your sanity will lower, and if it hits rock bottom, Daniel (the main protagonist) is only able to crawl on the floor. Loss of sanity has other nice aspects too, such as hearing voices and making it harder to hide from monsters. And oh yes, should you look directly at monsters, you would lose your sanity and fast. Sanity is restored by remaining in light and progressing in the story. If there is no light in the area, you can use one of your precious tinderboxes to light a torch or you can light up your lantern, which uses even more precious oil. Health can be lost by, you guessed it, getting hit by enemies and other nasty stuff. Health can be restored by progressing in the story and also by using rare potions.

Poor Agrippa

Though some players have said that they constantly ran out of oil and tinderboxes, I noticed that by the time I reached the end, I had a full lantern + 9 extra refillments or whatever they are called and around 30 tinderboxes. But on the other hand, I never use anything unless I really have to.

Atmosphere

Hiding didn't work so well

The game's atmosphere is at the beginning pretty lame, as it resorts way too often to "BOOOO A DOOR OPENED BY IT'S OWN" or "BOOOOOO A MYSTICAL WIND"-tricks to scare the player. Also the soundscape seems a bit monotonous and only distracts. However, both of these aspects only get better as you progress in the game, as the scares get rarer and rarer and the soundscape starts to blend in well. And overally, the game has clearly taken a lot of influences from Lovecraft.

Things aren't looking too bright

The worn-down castle of Brennenburg is really, really moody and offers a good place for horror story, however, I really liked more Penumbra's setting as it was more 'realistic', or should I say, more immersive? But still, finding a naked body in the morgue is one thing, taking a vaccine from the said body's blood is a whole another thing. It's things like these that make the game feel creepier than your average horror game - you are forced to take some actions to survive, and they really feel immoral and disgusting. And oh yes, the guys from Frictional have taken everything they can out from the setting - you visit cellars of all sorts, torture chambers, archives, prison, sewers, afromentioned morgue... and every place will make you nervous. Really nervous.

Yeah, this game is not for children

The monsters are of little variance, but that really doesn't matter, as they are rarely shown and seen. And if you see them, you are either too close, or should be running. And the monsters can be quite intelligent - I was rather amazed when a monster noticed that I was hiding in a room and started tearing the door down. Then I cried a little as it killed me, while I was weeping in the corner.

And if you haven't heard of the water monster yet, just check this YouTube-video. It is really, really tense. Let's just say, I felt safe because there were boxes all around. But then I had to drop into water and the chase began, and I only could breath once I was on dry land.

tl;dr-version: atmosphere gets great about 1/4 into the game, and won't let you go. And the graphics are really good, too.

Story

Who said picture is worth a
thousand words?

The story starts with the greatest cliché of them all - Amnesia (didn't see that one coming, huh?). Daniel, the protagonist, is inside Brennenburg castle and finds a note from himself - descend into the Inner Sanctum of the castle and kill Alexander. Why? It isn't revealed straight away, because, you know, that would be pretty lame. But it is a good reason to start moving. That, and the fact that "Shadow" is chasing you with an intent to kill.

One of the many diaries that can be found

The story develops in two timeframes - the one which the player is in, and the another, which is told by Daniel's diaries and other notes that can be found around the castle. I don't want to spoil too much, so I'll try to keep that to a minimum. The story revolves around an Orb that Daniel found on expedition in Africa, the curse that the orb has brought upon him and how Alexander tried/tries to help Daniel. The story also features Agrippa (Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa) as a major character, who also happens to be a real person, a German magician, occultist and so forth. And Johann Weyer, who is not seen in the game in person, is also mentioned. So you know that something occult is going on. The endings were a bit of a letdown, but still fitting in the contextual sense.

Overall

The game started a little slow and trying too many cheap tricks, but the further it got, the better it also became. It wasn't as scary as the Penumbra-games in my opinion, but is still one of the best new horror games, and I recommend everyone to try it. Besides, it costs less than 8€ on Steam, and there's also a demo available. Should you have a Linux or Mac-computer, worry not, Amnesia is available for Linux and Mac also, so in a sense, it's a true PC-game. If there's something bad to say, it is that level design is sometimes too confusing (I am looking at you, prison).