Recent reviews by Rock Lobster

Saving the game doesn't work and there's no fix for it. Didn't feel like finishing the game in one run.

Another failed Lovecraftian game. The genre "Lovecraftian" should've never existed in the first place because it's always the same with Lovecraftian media. You always know what you'll get and the marketing is the one to blame. The tentacles, that moment when the MC OpENs A F0RBID4EN B0OK oF kN0W1EDge TO LEARN ABOUT THE SUPERNATURAL AND NOW THERE'S NO WAY BACK AND HE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME, blurry and grainy camera effects, unwelcoming town with rude town folks, cults and rituals, and maybe even some drunk detective work to somehow try to make sense of this confusing mess which breaks his mind just to end up in a psych ward. The game could've been more enjoyable if it were possible to read the books and journals that MC finds. Some characters tend to introduce themselves in a short scene to never show up again. The game looks like a bad hidden object type of game with its poor scenes, ugly npcs and bad lip sync. Look at the main character, for instance. On the cover of the game he looks like a pretty fair looking guy with a hint of "don't frick with me or I'll knock you off your chair" (that's how he makes his introduction in the town to look cool but where did all that coolness go, huh?), but in the actual game he looks like a rugged guy with greasy hair that woke up with a bad case of hangover. If you look closely, he had some ancient food crumbs in his beard. The characters are bland and boring, including the MC that didn't seem to have any personality besides being a traumatized WW1 veteran (which is a neat little easter egg and a nod to some other video games). The only character I actually liked was the friendly cop. Although, he was useless too. Not to mention that you only get to see Papi Cthulhu for 2 seconds of the game in one of the endings.
The jumpscares show some lack of confidence, the puzzles are boring, and the AI isn't too smart. Sometimes you get to play as other undeveloped boring characters that don't explain how they got the skill of a masterful detective god if they're not detectives in the first place. Is everyone a Sherlock in this game?
You'll be better of playing "Cthulhu Saves the World" at this point.

"I learnt the hard way, to not be afraid of death, Senua. Because a life without loss is one without love."

This story isn't only about a mental illness and madness that resides in one's mind, this is about facing death and losing the most important person in your life. This is about being your worst enemy. There's nothing that can hurt you more than your own voices in your head that keep telling you that "You'll never be good enough" and "Just give up" and just keep laughing and berating you. Nothing's more cruel than your own hate towards yourself. Calling this work of art a "videogame" wouldn't do it justice. You can treat this game as a psychological horror, puzzle or even a walking simulator. Doesn't matter what label the game deserves, it's the story and the immersion that will hook you on Hellblade. Rest assured, there are no cheap jumpscares. Everything in this game is real enough just to make us understand that a human's mind is truly complex and will always stay a hidden mystery. It's impressive how far Ninja Theory went with their interviews and discovered more about psychosis. I watched the video that was included in the game's menu and it was fascinating. Such an interesting concept and brilliant execution. I love Senua and I was glad to see her happy at least in one of her memories. It was such an emotional piece to go through, I loved each and every moment of it. Reminded me of Dante's Inferno. I know it'll keep me thinking in the future. Everyone has their own battles, and you don't need to be a Celtic warrior just to prove to yourself that you're stronger than this.

I should've taken a 5 hour nap instead of wasting my time on this game. It did make me sleepy, though.
It's a bad game with reloading saves tactics. The MC is so unlucky, it's easy to get robbed or run out of travel money which gives you "game over". I'm on my 1200+ day and I'm tired of his mundane "travels" and having to always reload so I don't go bankrupt. The summary makes this game sound better than it actually is. It's also a clicker game. You know how many times you have to click on the "Hire" and "Fire" button whenever you want to hire or fire some guys? I had to hire 150 guys from the tavern to boost up my chance of getting more diamonds from the mines. The max number of guys you can hire\fire at once is 5. That means, for 1 mouse click you'll be hiring\firing 5 guys. Which means I had to click my mouse 30 times whenever I wanted to hire miners and then another 30 times when I had to fire them every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time. Couldn't they give us the option to punch in the number of miners we want in the first place? But no, that wouldn't be "old-school nostalgia-inducing trading experience". The only way I can describe it as a medieval taxi simulator. Taxi quests can be fun - take "Neo Cab", for instance. You could be playing as a taxi driver and meeting interesting characters on the way. It doesn't have to be this boring "Take me at the point A and drive me to the point B" idea like in "16bit Trader". This game makes paying taxes IRL seem fun. This is no RPG.

This is "Saw: The Game" with it's interesting torture devices and poor people getting tortured by an unknown serial killer. Don't try this at home (or outside in that matter). As much as I wish the killer was just your regular next door cereal killer, this game wouldn't have come to light if that were the case.

First things first: the game's pretty buggy and it used to crush on me so often in the beginning that I almost gave up on it.
The fix: right click on game, select "properties", in the "general" tab click on "SET LAUNCH OPTIONS" and in the small text window add "-force-gfx-direct" WITHOUT the quotation marks, click "OK". That did the trick for me and didn't crash not once.

The game is pretty interesting for all the thriller-heads out there - you're gonna like this. If you liked the show "Dexter" about a serial killer, then you'll love this. Really liked the art style and the plot. With a little twist in the end. This is definitely a golden point and click game for me and more people should hear about it.
Interesting murder cases, interesting cognitive powers and interesting characters. Maybe it's a little long for a point and click game but they used their time wisely. The devs really showed that this game is their beautiful baby. I could see the love they poured in the game with every episode I finished.
It took me a while to find out that you can make the main character run by double clicking, but for some reason you can't make other characters run when you're playing as someone else.

I'll give it 4 bags of popcorn 🍿🍿🍿🍿
Just because it's a little buggy.

Better than all of Yakuza games put together.
It's called "Sleeping Dogs", but I won't be getting any sleep since I'll be up playing this masterpiece.
I give it six bags of popcorn 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 out of five.

I'm not a fan of stealth so I knew what I was getting myself into.
What I didn't know is that it's a wannabe Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. NPCs in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines portray better emotion and that game came out in 2004. In DARK, on the other hand, characters seem rather robotic (even in cutscenes). Nothing unique in DARK, even though it claims to be a "unique stealth-action game".
I was rather baffled to find that I only have a 1-hit-kill. Apparently, Eric Bane's only "weapon" is his right fist. The missions are bland and repetitive with boring filthy rich bosses that spend too much money on security and ghouls. I still don't understand how human guards and ghouls can work together, but they're ready to kill a vampire when they see one. Actual missions:
- Kill some poor homeless people (training mission)
- Kill Blooming
- Kill Vlad (not the Impaler)
- Kill Steiner
The other missions are as follows:
- Try to save Rose
- Try to save Rose
- Find and save Rose
- Choose to either help Rose or abandon Rose in battle and go after the masterminding perpetrator and kill them.

I was pleasantly surprised to see my endgame choice that decides which one of the two endings I'll get. But it's still a pretty bad game.
I give it one bag of popcorn 🍿 out of five.

"A Mortician's Tale" is a Cinderella story of an E-girl working as a mortician. Charlie has a goth-like appearance - radical tattoos, black makeup, black long hair and bangs (so we know death is not a phase but a way of living). Although we play as Charlie - she's the most dead and robotic character in the game. She never talks or shows any emotion so it made impossible to be able to relate to her at all. The corpses are livelier than Charlie and they even have a backstory unlike her.
There are a few characters in the game and they talk to you through emails. You can't even reply to them, you only read their rants. Everyday you get an email - a random article about funerals. I don't know how valid those articles are knowing that embalming isn't exactly as they show in the game. We don't even get to plug the cadavers' body parts to prevent leakage.
Some characters:
- Charlie has one "unique" friend by the name of Jen Love - a bisexual redheaded feminist that's obsessed with wearing corsets and loves death. She's a package deal so take it or leave it!

- Amy Rose - Charlie's boss. She's a daughter of the founders of the funeral home. She's always kind to her employees and always sends Charlie a "thank you" note from her clients after the job. Finding it hard to scrap by and eventually decides to sell her family's funeral business to a big corporation.

- Chad Grant - New boss. Very different from Amy Rose - the good olde boss. Formal, striking fear, gives you the spank rather than the tasty treat for job well done. Also, on his very first day he makes up new rules. And they're as follows:
1) Uniform and strict dress code.
2) No tattoos are to be visible. Ensure they are properly covered and hidden. You already can't be buried with any of your Jewish ancestors. What were you thinking?
3) Upsell and sell out. Convince clients to purchase the higher quality package.
4) Convince clients to purchase a premium sandwich and appetizer food package for the funeral. Food is not allowed to be brought in.

- Matthew Jeffrey - Charlie's coworker with dark sense of humour that drops only one forgettable joke in the whole game. He grows very upset with a new management of their funeral home after their boss, Amy Rose, retires. He quits his job to become a school bus driver. He decided it's enough of death in his lifetime. He must be the only relatable character in this game.

There's not much gameplay or a story in the first place, the whole game is 1 long tutorial level. You're just stuck there reading articles and your friends' monologues. The ending was very dull and left me with questions. How did Charlie become her own boss? How did she have the money to buy the funeral home back from the sketchy corporation? Why couldn't her good old boss sell the business to Charlie in the first place?

I give it 1 bag of 🍿
And a paperclip 📎 because I would like Clippy's help on this one.

Alcatraz - a classic place you don't want to be in. Unless you're going on a tour to Alcatraz and you're not staying there permanently. Nobody wants to be imprisoned on an island, especially our Joe.
It's a story of two star-crossed lovers named Joe and Christine falling into the depths of murders and lies that they set up along their journey. Both of them are playable characters. Joe's goal is to escape Alcatraz and swim for shore. Doesn't matter who he takes out along the way. Christine's goal is to help Joe from the outside of prison since he has a leash on her - a huge amount of money that keeps her grounded by his side, and maybe her love for him. I can't tell what she loves more - her husband or her husband's money.
This is a great noir game and it has a swell amount of Jazz. Sure, loading times are a little long and the characters' movement is rough and awkward, but it's definitely worth a play. It's a unique point & click game and it's definitely not for kids. The game has 3 endings, save early and make sure to play them all! I recommend playing as a bad guy with a bad attitude all the time just to see the extra gameplay. Some of it is NSFW.
If you ever wondered how it feels to be a criminal but you weren't born one - just play this game!
I give it 5 bags of 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
And a fat load of 💰 that will be enough to leave your old life behind.

This is a realistic game that doesn't require you going outside. It's as pleasant as it comes and very rewarding too. After a long day of hard work I have a lovely house and a loving spouse to go back to. And we even have some smart pets that make our residence an even sunnier place to live in. This is indeed a breakthrough in video-games; it's hard to leave and close a game when you practically live there! Sometimes I forget to feed myself in real life because I've eaten a deliciously made Bubblefish Stew and it was so scrumptious that I could even taste it! I only wish I could come home to a cooked Pumpkin Shrimp Soup and maybe a Nori Burrito on the side by my amazing soulmate and later in the evening I wish to fall asleep cuddling the amazing cook that made my tummy so happy! And while I'm at it, I also want to ask the devs to maybe add multiplayer, because, you know, I want to connect with real people from the globe during this COVID-19 crisis (China and Italy especially), so we can enjoy this second reality together and rebuild our humanity in a small town called Portia where your neighbors are all your friends.

I give it 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
And just in case 😷😷😷😷😷😷😷😷😷