Recent reviews by А.З.

Being old enough and having played every game from the F.E.A.R. franchise back in the day of their original release makes rediscovering these titles after so many years quite an enjoyable experience. Despite being labelled as horror, any game in this series was first and foremost a competent FPS, a statement which is still true with this final instalment. With the premise heavily inspired by Japanese horror movies, particularly Ringu by Hideo Nakata, embodied through the character of omnipresent Alma, the living dead girl and the main antagonist of the series, and with blood and guts picturesquely scattered across the levels, the jump scares of this game are more reminiscent of the haunted house attraction and are more "cool" and "fun" rather than frightening.

Gameplay-wise F.E.A.R. 3 streamlines the cover system from the previous game and makes it actually worth using. However, the ability to lean, which was present in the first game, isn't included and is replaced by peeking that is used in conjunction with the aforementioned cover system. Health is no longer restored by consuming first-aid kits and is automatically regenerating instead. You can now also carry just two weapons instead of three like in previous games.

Being a corridor shooter, F.E.A.R. 3 makes up for it with imaginative levels. Each map, or rather "interval" - as they are called in this series, is uniquely themed, with pacing that alternates between shootouts and more quieter haunted house attractions.

Overall, with solid shooting mechanics and unique atmosphere, F.E.A.R. 3 still fills like a finely crafted experience up to this day. And it's a real shame we never got the fourth game.

Quite a blatant System Shock 2 ripoff (i.e., spiritual successor) that manages to borrow whole plot elements and gameplay concepts from its parent game. However, it's not nearly as enjoyable to play. Combat is annoying, with fights against a bullet sponge and teleporting enemies with powerful attacks that eat through your health bar like who knows what. Levels feature instant and almost instant-death scenarios of you dying of electric shock from exposed wire or from thrusting into a wall when exploring the outside of the space station. Generally, the game just favours you constantly quicksaving and reloading when things go haywire. And that is not an enjoyable way to play anything.

While not a bad game per se, Styx pales in comparison to other titles of the Stealth genre. Classic Thief games are better at pure stealth, Dishonored is more interesting as an action-stealth title and Hitman excels at a puzzle-oriented gameplay. Master Of Shadows has very little for you to do during the missions. Usually, there are just two objectives, with one of those being optional, and absolutely nothing else. You can look for hidden tokens or relics, but apart from endgame achievement, there's no incentive to do that. So pretty much the only thing that you are doing during the mission is killing, or evading, the guards. Gradually unlocked skillset slightly breaks the monotony of the gameplay, but really not enough to keep your attention for long.

A very, very basic stealth game in everything from wooden animations to the lack of 3D sound where it is impossible to tell if the patrolling guard's footsteps are coming from behind you or the floor above or below. There's no reason to play this when the classic Thief games are as cheap and, thanks to community enhancements, as awesome as the day when they were released.

A pretty average top-down shooter with some very light Metroidvania-like mechanics. Campy, middle of the last century B-movie Sci-Fi art style is, hands down, rather amusing, with some occasionally funny, if maybe slightly forced, commentary from the movie director of the film you're supposedly watching. Plastic, rubber animations only fit the retro, stop motion animated vibe given by the monsters. But gameplay-wise, to repeat myself, the game is absolutely nothing special.

Managing expectations is important. Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to expect a story that works not only on a basic three act structure level, but also leaves room for arguing about a metaphor, detailed analysis and interpretation. Not that there is anything wrong with a more straightforward storytelling, especially if it's finely crafted, but the number of science fiction clichés that present in STASIS is just too large: Unethical Scientific Experiment gone wrong, Evil Megacorporation, Insane Over-Obsessed Scientist that just have to Play God because... clichés.
I guess you can argue that this failed experiment can be interpreted as a metaphor for a stem cell controversy; evil scientist who violates medical ethics is a warning reminder of unethical human experimentation and that such sets of principles as the Nuremberg Code[en.wikipedia.org] and the Declaration of Helsinki[en.wikipedia.org] could not be violated; and Megacorporation is supposedly an anti-globalization statement. But for that assumption to be true, those topics should be actually developed and expanded upon. Instead they exist only to justify the horror setting and as a mechanism that propels protagonist from point A to B.
It's important to manage expectations, but it also important to look at things in a fair way. And it's hard to argue that for a small South African indie studio STASIS is a huge accomplishment. Crafted mainly by just two people this game boasts some pretty decent visuals, while also managing to lend several genuinely effective jump scares (in a point and click adventure game!) and have one pretty disturbing (think self surgery scene from Prometheus) scene. Game's puzzle logic isn't a completely detached one either, and puzzle logic is very important in an adventure game.
I don't see myself replaying STASIS, and it certainly did not manage to leave any kind of significant aftertaste. But it's a first step, and a one which brothers Chris and Nic Bischoff (main creators of the game) should not be ashamed of. I just hope they will hire a proper scriptwriter for their new game.

With this game being one of the so-called "walking simulators" with very simple and straightforward puzzles which include placing object A in slot B, pushing buttons in specific order and jumping puzzles, it is the story, themes and setting that is making this game shine.
Without giving too much of the plot away, I will describe first half an hour of the game, which will make it easier to talk about the themes that the story explores later on. You're playing one of the Astronauts sent to a distant planet that is thought to be filled with various kinds of life. With the journey taking more than a dozen years to reach it's destination, even though the spaceship is travelling twice the speed of light, the crew is put into a cryosleep. On reaching the planet something goes terribly wrong and a landing pod with all of the crew still asleep is crashed into the planet's surface. Some time after the crash landing, the protagonist regains consciousness only to find out that all of the crew is gone, landing pod is damaged beyond repair, his space suit is leaking oxygen and the planet itself turns out to be the wasteland with no signs of life. However after spotting and following the footprints in the sand you discover a derelict Soviet Union outpost, and this is where the protagonist starts to question if their mission was a hoax.
With the game starting out as a more straightforward sci-fi thriller, especially after encountering a strange woman who can walk the surface of the planet without the need for a special suit with the supply of oxygen, even with the influences of the early science fiction films of the first half of the last century (particularly Aelita[en.wikipedia.org] and Woman in the Moon[en.wikipedia.org]) it is very interesting to watch how the game expands it's story into a more intelligent and thoughtful themes. If you're familiar with the works of the great Stanislaw Lem[en.wikipedia.org], particularly the ones that explore attempts at communicating with an alien intelligence (see: "Solaris", "The Invincible" and "Fiasco") you will know what I mean. Having said that, I also have to say that as other great pieces of art Lifeless Planet is using those influences to tell it's own story. With the main themes of game being the ones of ecology and how species interact with the biosphere; Fermi paradox[en.wikipedia.org] and the concept of otherness; and of course the story of the main protagonist, which ties it all together through his own personal loss in the past that he overcomes by finding out the story of that mysterious woman and the chain of events that led the planet to a state in which you found it.

To put it simple, this game is on a good side of average. If you are dying for a point and click fix, then this will be right your alley, otherwise wait for a discount.
Metal Dead is never really hitting that top notch mark, as some other comedy Adventure Games Studio games, for example absolutely wonderful Time Gentlemen, Please! Nor does it tackle zombie genre clichés with such grace as a Shawn Of The Dead.
Some jokes are funny ("Get to the Choppa!"), some are not. Dialogue in this game is basically, and I don't know which over word should I use here, works. Puzzles are straightforward, and total game time was around 4 hours for me.

First, there was a freeware version (released in 2009, now called Spelunky Classic[spelunkyworld.com]) which I played extensively for two years and never thought to return to Spelunky after it. Oh boy, was I wrong.
I bought enhanced XBLA HD version when it was released and played it almost any other day. Until Windows remake version have come out. Which I bought (GOG version). I don't know how many hours my combined playtime of all versions of Spelunky was to this time, but it have to be massive. Hundreds of hours. That didn’t stop me from buying the Vita version of the game, though. So I could play Spelunky, when I can’t play Spelunky. And now I bought the Steam version of the game, so I could play the Daily Challenge.
I don’t think there is another video game in the world, which you can complete in under 3 minutes time (check this amazing speedrun by Bananasaurus Rex) and yet come back to time, time and time again.
Spelunky contains secrets that took months for the community to unravel; it’s level layouts, traps, and placements of things are procedurally generated and thus never repeat itself; relatively small amount of time needed to complete the game only urge you to try new tactics when you fail (and you will!) to do so.
I’m playing this game for the fifth year now and despite all the times that I rage quit after falling on spikes on the very first level, despite that I have travelled to Hell and beaten King Yama (on GOG version, still can’t repeat this on Steam version), despite that I have own and played five different version of Spelunky I still can’t get enough of it.
Made by just two guys, Spelunky is not only crowning achievement of indie game development, but game development in general, that any of AAA games with huge budgets and lots of staff is yet achieve.