Recent reviews by BinarySplit

I got stuck on a bug early in the game in a location called The Anechoic Lazaret. In the forums, tens of people have complained about this bug and 11 months have passed since the first report. Someone in the forums have actually posted how to edit the game files to fix the bug, but the developers haven't even done a minimal amount of work to patch that fix into the game.

The developers have clearly abandoned this game in a buggy state. This is really disappointing, as it had a lot of potential. Save yourself the frustration and avoid this game.

The gameplay and exploration are really fun. Well worth the price.

I loved Gone Home, and I found the basic gameplay of Tacoma quite enjoyable, but I don't recommend it.

Firstly, it's way too expensive for a 2-3hr game. Although the backstory and personality of each of the characters is incredibly detailed, the plot is actually really thin and the ending not very satisfying. The conversations between the characters are fun to follow, but the story keeps interrupting and detracting from the main core of the game.

If you liked Gone Home and you find Tacoma for sale at or below $5, there's a decent chance it'll be worth it for you. However, if you haven't played Gone Home yet, you definitely should get it first - it's a much more enjoyable experience.

Piranha Bytes are back! I was worried they had lost their way with Risen 2 and Risen 3, but ELEX is a return to what made their older games amazing.

The world of ELEX is huge and diverse. There's very little repetition, it feels like they hand-crafted every little corner of the world and gave every NPC their own story.

Like many of Piranha Bytes' games before it, ELEX is paced for the long haul. You don't get many toys to start off with, but throughout the game there's a constant trickle of new content and gameplay. 10 hours in and I'm still trying to get into a faction (factions basically decide your class). Having an experience that continues to develop into the late game is what made Risen 1 so memorable for me, I have no doubt I'll be playing for many more weeks and thinking back to ELEX for months after that.

A superb adventure platformer. Wuppo goes the extra mile in trying to make a living, breathing world. It's packed with collectables, lore, satire, secrets and characters that actually have interesting things to say. The combat is relatively fun, and the ending well-timed and rewarding.

It's not perfect, but the good far outweighs the bad, and it's definitely worth its price.

TLC is very interesting take on the '90s meme of associating psychotherapy with the study of repressed sexuality. If you're looking for porn, I'm sorry but you'll mostly be disappointed - there's several scenes of full frontal toplessness, but in context they're actually more disturbing than erotic. But if you're looking for a cheesy "so bad it's good" movie with a premise that only would have worked 20 years ago, then it's definitely worth your time.

It's basically a movie with a number of completely point-and-click "explore the house for more information" sections. They give a bit more insight into the characters, but you wouldn't miss much from skipping them. Playtime is about 4 hours depending on how much of the optional content you read. There's also 8 endings, but you can just watch the movie files for the other endings in the game directory if you want.

Prey is simply amazing. It's the successor to System Shock 2 that we've been waiting for. The sci-fi setting is intriguing, the gameplay is fun till the end, the character progression is rewarding, the feeling of personal agency in such a story-heavy game is quite impressive, and the ending is an actual satisfying conclusion.

I'm generally a pretty frugal gamer, and I was really hesitant to pay full price for Prey, but now I don't regret it one bit.

It's addictive, but not fun. You keep making progress and unlocking things, but they hardly change anything.

There are very few viable strategies for wiping out the earth, and often it comes down to luck. Basically, soon after your disease is detected, earth starts researching a cure. This starts a timer - you have to infect and then kill everyone before the cure is made, because once there's a cure it's impossible to win. There's no fighting against treatments or disease resistance or immunity or anything like that - you just spread, kill, and hope that you're faster than the cure. It's incredibly repetitive.

The ape and vampire campaigns are a bit different and a bit more fun - you can actually undo some of the work toward a cure by destroying labs. But there still isn't that enough interactivity with the world to be fun - you just choose the right upgrades at the right times, and occasionally attack specific targets as soon as they appear.

The most frustrating bit is that is often you'll get to the end-game and suddenly you'll stop receiving DNA to buy upgrades. You could be the most successfully contagious disease on earth and suddenly be unable to evolve any lethality. Losing always feels so arbitrary - as if you were playing an RPG and you kept getting one-kit-killed by invisible enemies.

It's interesting and quite unique, but there were enough annoyances that this would be a negative review if it had cost me $5 instead of $1.

There are bugs, the translation is pretty bad, and the ending leaves a lot unresolved. That said, it has surprisingly high production values - awesome visual effects, great music, very interesting characters and setting.

I'd recommend this if it's still $1, but if not, then it's definitely worth checking the forums to see whether they've fixed the bugs & translation shortcomings. I really hope the sequel FLUTONIUM is released in a better state, because they've made such a cool universe and it's just the rough edges that you'd think would be easy to fix that are letting it down.

The first couple hours were an awesome and unique experience that I totally recommend experiencing. The world in DoaSJ is bustling and full of alien culture (music, religion, etc.) that will draw you in. It's very enjoyable and I highly recommend it if it's at a price you're willing to pay for 2 hours of fantastic game.

After the 2 hour mark, however, the game loses its shine. There are a lot of optional things you can do (e.g. finding the right vendor to sell the things you pick up) that actually aren't worth the time or effort required. You end up just becoming a minmaxing grinder because it's the only way to get through the story in a reasonable amount of time. It's a bit sad - I was really hoping that the world would develop, or the story would unfold in unexpected ways, but hours 3-7 were just a repetitive slog with no reward.

I still recommend playing a couple hours of DoaSJ, but don't expect to finish it - once the game stops being enjoyable, it doesn't recover.