"Brassheart" - my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "Brassheart is a game of layers. It’s instantly and obviously brilliant on the surface, but just below that veneer are enough minor glitches, bugs and mistakes to take off some of the shine. Fortunately, beneath those are lots of fun character interactions and puzzles to make it well worth looking past its shortcomings. The story is interesting enough to keep you entertained, and the gameplay experience is classic point-and-click adventuring but with a thoroughly modern hi-definition look. It would be even better with a bit more polish, which prevents me from giving it a higher rating it would otherwise completely deserve. But I very much appreciate what it’s trying to do and believe most adventure fans will have fun accompanying Pola and Pascal on their world-saving journey."

I'm 5 hours into "Old Skies" and time is getting loopy!

Back to the Future taught me this headline will probably change...

I'm five hours into Old Skies by Wadjet Eye Games and I've just finished chapter 2!

You won't collect many inventory items in Old Skies!

After catching up with the guy that went awol in chapter 1, I returned to the present to prepare myself for the next assignment. This time, a famous boxer wants to travel back in time to the guy who inspired her, to ask him a question. That sounded simple enough, but it turned out to be anything but.

A cozy night to prepare for the big fight!

So we traveled to the year 1871. First of all we had to track him down, then he turned out to be a completely different person than we'd anticipated. Very different. So different, in fact, we had to activate an emergency protocol, rewinding time for a short period so I could try something again. But rest assured, these are short scenes and not as annoying as other time-looping games where they have you replay entire sections over and over again. I really don't like playing those, and I can honestly say I never once felt like I wasn't having fun with Old Skies!

These close-up scenes are really gorgeous!

These scenes are actually part of the fun. They are very well written, and Fia's personality really comes to the fore in these extreme situations. They are also part of the puzzles, and usually come down to discovering the right information, which you can then use in the correct dialogue options. It takes some figuring out, and even some time-hopping between two different dates, but it all happens with the right amount of humor and doing so gives a great feeling of accomplishment.

New York museums have always astounded me...

So after a lot of unexpected stuff went down in 1871, I returned back to the present, where I was put on a third assignment which took me to the art gallery. The curator wants to find out if an anonymous painting truly belongs to this famous painter in the 1920's. Yet another era to visit, no doubt with its own challenges!

You can find Old Skies here!

New Game: "Old Skies" playthrough!

New game!

I've started playing the new Wadjet Eye game, Old Skies, and I'm one hour into it!

Got any Belgian beers in this place?

My name is Fia Quinn. I work for a company called Chronozen, which works as a kind of travel agency, only across time instead of across the geographical world. It's my job to accompany travelers and keep them (and the time they're traveling to) safe. Think of me as some kind of Time Police. Of course, this wouldn't be much of an adventure game if things didn't go wrong!

Weeeeeeee!!!!!

After one hour of gameplay, I'm still on my first mission. This dying man - a pretty famous inventor, as well - wanted to go eat at the burger joint of his college days one last time, but then tricks everyone and vamooses for some kind of covert, personal mission he didn't tell us about. So I need to track him down, the slippery git...

A real restaurant would cram THREE tables in that spot...

Old Skies doesn't feel like a game; it feels like a work of art. It's entertainment of a whole other level. Its graphical style doesn't look anything like other Wadjet Eye games. There's a constant jazzy, bluesy soundtrack that's just waiting for the game equivalent of an Oscar nomination. Fia is voiced by the incomparable Sally Beaumont, who also worked as a writer on this story.

Always love search engines in games!

The puzzles feel very much like those in the Blackwell series. It's mostly figuring things out and progressing the story than actually "solving" puzzles, combining items, etc. You talk to people, you look up things in Chronozen's archive system and even on a regular computer if they happen to exist in the time you've traveled to. The first real puzzle in the game is figuring out the combination of a door lock. The story progresses at a natural pace through dialogue and cutscenes, and I'm basically loving this type of gameplay. I'm playing, but it doesn't feel like I'm playing. I'm experiencing, and so far I haven't cursed getting stuck on some obtuse puzzle obstacle or other. Simply put, I'm enjoying the heck out of this game, and I'm having a great time with it!

The map or travel screen, always era-appropriate.

And no, I'm not just saying that because Dave Gilbert honored me with the chance to test it before release. I gave him plenty of feedback of things I thought could be better ;)

You can find Old Skies here!

My 50th Adventure Game Hotspot review: "The Haunting of Joni Evers"!

 

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "The brief time I spent playing through The Haunting of Joni Evers stirred loads of emotions in me. But then, I am quite susceptible to the feelings of others. I still enjoy reading the occasional young adult novel, which often involve dealing with other people while searching for your own place in the world. And that’s exactly what Joni’s quest here entails. She went through some bad stuff with her family, and because of that has lost track of the good stuff. She doesn’t understand the decisions her family made, because she’s never truly grasped who they are and what drives them. Instead of being just a terrifying boogeyman, the demonic Skull Man is a means to finally open her eyes and see the essence of her parents, sister and grandmother. Perhaps this entire process is meant to be completely symbolic and nothing but imaginary; who’s to say? Either way, it’s real to Joni, and in guiding her through the game, it is good fun to search through her family’s massive house, gather nostalgic items and perform rituals, constantly on your toes for manifestations of the Skull Man. The gameplay is simple and rather formulaic, but it’s more than a simple horror game, with a lot of drama to wade through as well, making this a very intimate-feeling experience that is sure to tug on your heartstrings."