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The steady flow of reflective and slow adventure games has definitely reached a saturation point where the mere idea of one coming out is no longer notable or celebration-worthy. In fact, there are a lot of games in this category that actually just seem like derivative attempts to ride the coattails of pioneering titles like Dear Esther. In any case, A Memoir Blue is definitely one of these kinds of games, and it manages to distinguish itself through its unique blend of art styles, focus on light puzzle-solving, and simple-yet-powerful storytelling.

Sunken memories

A Memoir Blue is a sort of surreal adventure where you dive into the memories of a nameless woman who seems to have found success as a swimmer. Through this wordless story, you'll find this woman literally swimming through an ocean filled with objects and images from her past, and through poking and prodding at them in the right ways you can trigger small cutscenes that start piecing together a coherent story.

You never have direct control over the protagonist, but rather they'll stop in a scene you're supposed to interact with or the camera will automatically zoom up to the things the game wants you to focus on. This takes makes it less like a “walking simulator” like the games it seems inspired by but also has the added benefit of eliminating any pathfinding issues or guesswork about how to proceed through the experience.

Old and new

It takes a little bit of time to really understand where A Memoir Blue is trying to go with its story, but once you put it together it's very well-worn territory. I don't want to get into spoilers as discovering what is going on is part of what makes the game enjoyable, but I will say that it has some genuinely moving moments despite the somewhat tropey narrative.

Story beats in A Memoir Blue land primarily because of the game's style, which mixes 3D and 2D animation in ways that are both novel but also intentional for reinforcing aspects of the story. It's also worth noting that A Memoir Blue has a beautiful soundtrack that helps make its emotional highs peak a little higher than they might otherwise.

A simple puzzle

A Memoir Blue punctuates its story moments with sections of puzzle-solving that usually involve manipulating and object to get it into a desired state before moving forward. Examples of this are putting books onto a shelf, turning on lights, opening doors, etc. None of it is particularly complicated, but they are satisfying actions to perform and give you some attachment to the scene they inevitably end up being used for.

What I appreciate about this approach is it allows A Memoir Blue to move very swiftly through its story without hanging you up on obtuse challenges. This isn't a terribly long game, but it wouldn't be made more enjoyable if it gave you more significant obstacles to overcome.

The bottom line

It took a moment for A Memoir Blue to click with me, as it looks and feels quite a bit like every other emotive adventure at first. Slowly but surely though, the game reveals itself to be a novel and stylish take on an unsurprising but well-executed story.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/a-memoir-blue-review/

As its name implies, Bugbear's Wreckfest is all about vehicular wreckage. With an impressive physics engine and detailed modeling, everything from the ride-on lawn mowers to giant harvesters smash up really nicely. As cool as all of it can look, though, Wreckfest rarely feels very good, which is the core issue with the game and overall experience.

Smash em' up

Wreckfest is largely set up like a very typical racing game. You start with access to a limited set of vehicles to choose from that you can take into single races or use in a single-player campaign, and as a result of participating you gradually build up currency and earn unlocks that give you access to more vehicles and customization options.

The primary twist (and what Wreckfest hangs its hat on) is that in all of these events focus on your ability to shunt other drivers into walls, force them to spin out, etc. There are also some events that aren't even races, but rather are like a demolition derby where everyone drives around an arena hitting each other until only one driver is left with a driveable vehicle.

Detailed damage

Along with the encouragement to smash up the competition, Wreckfest rewards you with some impressive damage modeling to bend, scrape, and peel off nearly every facet of every vehicle until they are barely recognizeable. Even on mobile devices, the level of detail on display to show this destruction is really impressive, though your mileage can vary with regard to frame rate and rendering resolutions depending on what model device you're playing on.

Speaking of details, Wreckfest also offers an array of customization options beyond visual fidelity. Each car can be tuned to pretty exacting specifications, and can also be decked out with a lot of different paint options. All told, there's quite a bit to sink your teeth into and this mobile version doesn't really seem to compromise all that much if at all.

Look vs. feel

As impressive as Wreckfest looks, I do find its gameplay a bit disappointing. Massive multi-car wrecks can look incredibly impressive, but those don't come along that often because bumping and driving in this game doesn't feel all that good or impactful. There's just not a very good sense of speed in the game, so it constantly feels like you're crawling along, and this gets reinforced by impacts that only occasionally feel violent and fast.

It also probably doesn't help that Wreckfest seems to be a bit buggy. In my time with the game, I had moments where the gas pedal stopped working or cars just clipped through each other instead of colliding. These bugs were few and far between, but they did hamper what was already shaping up to be a somewhat underwhelming driving experience.

The bottom line

I don't know if it's the kind of realism Wreckfest is chasing or just some technical issues, but the game could stand to add some arcade-y “oomf” to its collisions. Or some speed. Anything, really. Outside of being a pretty good-looking game with highly detailed modeling, the racing experience of Wreckfest is rather dull.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/wreckfest-review/