Recent reviews by Caped Crusader

Portal without the fun or quality writing. Not at all worthy of a special RTX edition.

The 13th Doll's soundtrack is quite decently done, though it's also mixed in terms of composition quality from track to track. However, there are some real gems sprinkled throughout and I'm very much impressed that in certain instances they do truly replicate the feel of The Fat Man's score for The 7th Guest. It does disappoint me a bit that the soundtrack is sold separately and for what I do consider a distinctly premium price, but there's no denying you get A LOT of music to explore.

The primary reason I'm writing this review is that I want people to be aware that the music files themselves are far from ideal in quality, being a range of 128, 192, and 320 kbps MP3s and using Joint Stereo (simplifying the Left/Right audio separation). To the average listener this may go unnoticed, but it does fundamentally alter the music in terms of simplifying the sound space (I'm a layman, so that's the best I can describe it) and the low 128 bit rate of about 40% of the music is frankly insulting. FLAC or a similar high quality, modern file format should have been offered in this situation.

I've giving this a thumbs up because I think the music is the main attraction, but audiophiles will likely take great offense at the way it's being provided and potentially feel ripped off.

Music: 4/5
Presentation: 1/5

An excellent little maze game. 50 levels total across difficulties of easy, medium and hard (hard has just 10 levels, the others 20 each). No reason to go into great detail on the gameplay, it's exactly what it says on the tin: get your shiny piece across the labyrinth to the black hole exit. I will confess the UI elements and backgrounds seem more akin to something made in the 1990s (the buttons give me strong Privateer 2 vibes), but they do have their own unique charm, and the backgrounds looked nice and crisp on my 4K display. The music, while repetitive, was decently relaxing, but you could always mute that and pipe in your own from elsewhere. Controls are basic, you can only use a mouse in the menu screens, during levels you have to use the arrow keys. A bit more refinement on that front would've helped and been appreciated, the shiny orb movement could also be smoother, but I must say those are minor quibbles and didn't distract from my enjoyment. Strongly recommended, that is if mazes are your cup of tea.

Rating - 4/5

First game I've ever felt compelled to ask for a refund for and honestly it's something I never thought I'd do. The engine grossly overuses a depth of field blurring effect, which is broken, much too severe, and causes the game board to be very annoying to look at, plus there are no visual refinement choices whatsoever that might allow me to fix it. Further, the way the fundamental gameplay is handled feels strangely sluggish with bizarre choices for the UI and animations (Why are the dice always being thrown at the player's board piece, knocking them over?) You also can't really customize the game rules the way I expected. They do have a handful of options, like one game mode where fines/taxes go into Free Parking, which is better than nothing, but you can't toggle specific rules to tailor things to personal preference.

The previous PC versions of Monopoly I owned from the 90s and IIRC early 2000s got things right, and this feels like it was made by a team that doesn't appreciate the source board game and tried to overload it with visual bells and whistles that are half baked at best. It also seems like UBIsoft has essentially abandoned the game in terms of fixes, so I would request that they show some respect to the legacy of Monopoly, put this game in full End of Life status, no longer offer it for purchase, and let Marmalade (makers of a very decently done adaptation of Clue/Cluedo) port the version of Monopoly they've made for mobile devices. I'm not saying that would be guaranteed to be perfect, I merely know they made a Monopoly mobile game, but it would no doubt be worlds better than this unmitigated disaster and Monopoly simply deserves better.

Rating - 1/5

A nice little relaxing puzzle game, though also not extraordinary by any means. Each level poses you with a rudimentary construction of blocks and then a click count of blocks that need to be removed before you can "Launch" and see how things hold up after a tiny drop with physics enabled. If the construction stays together, you win the level. If it tumbles apart, you just return to the beginning state and try again.

Roughly a third of the 50 levels I was able to pass successfully on the first attempt, while most others took 2-3 tries. Oddly there's not much of what can be called a difficulty curve, the majority of levels only needing 2 or 3 blocks removed. The number of removal clicks in the final few levels does grow, but by then you probably have a good sense about the types of structures to aim for and it also becomes a bit silly how obvious the unnecessary blocks are. Being frank, I feel like the creator got a bit bored working on the game and just wanted it done. I felt that most strongly in the final level. However, I do find that a shame as I think this could have made a decent series if just a tad more care and craftsmanship were put into the project. It's not a bad game, overall I had fun with it, but in terms of substance I'd compare it to a light snack of cheese and crackers and they really dropped the ball when it came to the crescendo.

3/5

I was excited to play The Complex, expecting a tense interactive thriller, but the storytelling was unfortunately very weak and it does little to create enthusiasm to see the alternate paths after your first playthrough. The sequence of events, which doesn't change all that much except near the final minutes, takes rather cheap shortcuts and paints characters in such broad strokes that it feels as though it was made from a thin, bullet-point outline rather than a properly fleshed out screenplay. I don't want to get into spoilers, but the security of this supposedly very new, "spared no expense" superlab somewhere near London is laughably bad and the nature of the bio threat, while gross and painful in its visible symptoms, doesn't make much (if any) sense.

Things are somewhat better on the technical side. The video quality is decent, I would guess 1080p, and looked fine on my 4K screen. Not a blu-ray level bitrate, but good enough. The decision prompts also have a nice, clean design. However, one glaring issue is the music, which seems to be hard-embedded into the videos themselves, and this creates situations of both abrupt fade outs of the score and moments that last longer than they should where I've made a plot decision but the lead character (supposedly an expert research scientist) stands in place looking indecisive, often spoiling the drama of the moment.

There was a great deal of potential here, I love smart science fiction stories like The Andromeda Strain, and Wales Interactive really impressed me with their earlier FMV game Late Shift, where your decisions can lead to wildly different outcomes, but the designers here made major errors not giving the story and fluidity of the experience the attention they deserved.

Story: 2/5
Gameplay: 2/5
Graphics: 3/5
Sound: 2/5
Overall: 2/5

I'm truly impressed. The first season I thought was decent enough - a fairly average Batman story done in the typical Telltale style, a couple twists on convention, good voice acting, but still that sense of rigid story progression I disliked about their take on Game of Thrones, among others. Batman: The Enemy Within went in far more surprising directions and seemed quite responsive to the choices I made, especially in the area of character relationships.

Perhaps the most striking difference was that the polish remained high for the full duration, both the graphics/animation and care put into the writing. The final episodes of the original struck me as rushed and, to be blunt, uninspired in their design. Not at all the case here. There's still the heavy reliance on QTEs and puzzles that barely qualify as puzzles, but the pacing of those elements is vastly improved. Also greatly appreciated was the addition of attack choices offered in the heat of combat, so those portions no longer felt like I was playing Dragon's Lair or Space Ace. The major set pieces I suspect are probably very similar, the location where they take place, but the events in them can often spin in odd directions, even which side Batman is on in a battle between groups, offering real replay value.

It's a shame Batman: The Enemy Within would be one of the last games made by Telltale before their collapse. My favorite title of theirs is The Wolf Among Us. This would be a very close second. The main reason is merely that I find the world of Wolf Among Us more interesting. Here Gotham is essentially the same Gotham as any other Batman tale - morally corrupt and decayed, brimming with disused facilities perfectly suited for criminal lairs, a few well-meaning souls fighting the good fight but never turning the tide. Even so, I was captivated by the way characters frequently revealed human frailties and self-doubt, in many situations just doing their best with the hand they've been dealt, noble intent and the pursuit of justice giving no guarantee of a better tomorrow.

Story: 5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Graphics: 4/5
Sound: 4/5
Overall: 4/5

After a 15 year wait, I'm glad The 13th Doll was finished and finally shared with the world. The 7th Guest was one of the first games I played on PC. I loved the atmosphere of Henry Stauf's mansion, The Fat Man's wonderful score, and how the puzzles were challenging yet fair. Some people were (and still are) highly critical of the acting in the FMV sequences, but I have to confess I found even that part of its charm. Unfortunately, the official sequel, The 11th Hour, was a major let down, despite some impressive technical improvements for its time, such as 16-bit color. While I could go on and on about the areas where I think they went wrong with the sequel, ultimately I think it fell victim to the trend of certain games in the 90s to be very edgy and more violent just for the sake of creating hype. Both its gameplay and story were mean spirited and simply not fun.

So good news first: I am happy to report that The 13th Doll is better than The 11th Hour. The main foyer and hallways of the mansion look very good. The original music does a solid job of capturing the tone established by George Sanger, in itself no easy feat, and even has some pieces that I'd say are truly excellent. What most surprised and impressed me is the general quality of the puzzles. They are often more difficult than those in The 7th Guest, but you can tell a lot of care was put into their designs and that they were thoroughly tested and refined. I must be honest, I expected to be let down in this area and they knocked it out of the park (with one rather big exception noted below).

On to the bad news: The story is absolutely dreadful. I'm someone who very much enjoys FMV games and here I wish I could've skipped those sequences, like all of them. Truth be told, when an FMV sequence started playing that I could tell would take a few minutes, that's when I'd often go get a drink or snack and take my sweet time doing so. The basic premise doesn't make sense given the events of the first game. There's no sense of mystery. Worst of all, it's not spooky, even in a playful way. Many rooms of the mansion and the handful of other locations are very inconsistent and should have been polished further, especially in regard to textures and lighting.

While I liked the majority of the puzzles, the way they handled the basement maze is just needlessly cruel. In The 7th Guest the maze featured a central corridor so that if you got lost or knew everything down one hallway was only dead ends, you could go back to that hub without too much trouble and try one of the other off-shoots. Simple trial and error would lead you eventually to the correct path, and worst case scenario likely only 30-45 minutes overall start to finish. Here the maze is 4X the size, perhaps more, but a true labyrinth with so many twists and turns that you either need to use pencil and paper to graph out the layout piece by piece, which for one streamer I observed on Twitch took north of 2 hours, or you'll need to reference a walkthrough (what I personally did). Because of that segment of the game, I deducted a full point from the puzzles score.

As bad as all those criticisms may sound, I did enjoy The 13th Doll. It was welcome to see Robert Hirschboeck return as Stauf, a character he still clearly has a lot of fun performing. Having two characters to play as is an intriguing change, and I like that each has entirely different puzzles, so there is real value in playing the game at least a second time. The puzzles also make some cool nods to those in the earlier games, especially one near the end, if you're playing the Tad path.

Finally, I just want to say that for as much as I dislike the story and was annoyed by the FMVs, I don't blame the cast. The material they were handed was bad, they just did the best they could with it and the production resources available.

Puzzles: 4/5
Story: 1/5
Graphics: 3/5
Sound: 4/5
Overall: 3/5

Put simply: If you own the Battleship base game and only play Classic mode, there's really no reason you need to get this DLC pack. On the other hand, if you enjoy the Commanders mode where you can use special abilities, plus the ships and game boards have unusual shapes, it is worth considering, at least when it's on sale. What's included here roughly doubles the number of commanders you can pick from, each having their own unique ships and power attacks, as well as offering more board layouts.

Sir Phillip Wade is a highlight because with just 6 points he can fire at 5 squares anywhere on the board of his precise choosing. Other commanders, with one or two exceptions, typically require roughly 10 points for their power attack and are either limited to a fixed line/square or simply blind fire at random spots.

On the whole, the DLC pack adds respectable replay value, but I wish it weren't so limited to just the Commanders side, which I'm sure isn't everyone's cup of tea.

4/5

Reviews are mixed for the Universal Classics DLC, for good reason, but in terms of play I think this is a decent set of fantasy tables. Wait for a sale price though. Key problem is that Zen was not allowed to use either music or sound clips from the films, severely hurting the authenticity.

Back to the Future - 4/5 - The voice acting leaves something to be desired, but this table is rather unique how it uses pop-up characters as obstacles blocking the back half of the board, creating an unusual play dynamic. The different years you can visit from all 3 movies also makes it easy to have a fresh experience each time you play.

E.T. - 3/5 - A rather conventional layout for a fantasy table, but then it has wonderful atmosphere during the night time portions. Good flow for the ball. References scenes from the movie nicely.

Jaws - 1/5 - At a glance this table is gorgeous, but then it just doesn't play well and I quickly grew annoyed with the layout. Given time I can overlook someone else voicing Doc Brown or E.T. However, the voice work here for Quint is an abomination compared to the performance of Robert Shaw. Even worse, they couldn't cover John Williams' classic music, so there's no drama. I love the film and loathe this table.

Overall - 3/5