Aliens: Dark Descent – The Lethe Bug Crisis

In space, nobody can fix your bugs. Besides the fairly buggy nature of Aliens: Dark Descent, it is somewhat of an unexpected sleeper hit of the year. The gameplay, and general mechanics work well, and are clearly thought-out, which together with the visuals and audio creates a very nice Aliens experience. It truly feels like the movie when you slowly skulk the poorly lit and narrow space colonial corridors – then for it to suddenly switch from tension to high-octane action when your badass Marines with their cool outfits and iconic weapons open up on the deadly and terrifying Xenomorphs. It actually resembles Aliens to a fault, as it becomes a little too much familiar in the narrative. Seemingly, there is only one way to write games based on the Alien franchise. 

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Star Trek: Resurgence – Alien Diplomacy R Us

So, how about this! A new Star Trek game that is actually good. Well, as far as the story goes at least, and the presentation overall. It is lacking in the gameplay department, but what else can be expected from a studio consisting of former Telltale employees? Star Trek: Resurgence is Dramatic Lab’s first game, and to nobody’s surprise the gaming aspect remains as mentioned limited, however, it comes with severely upgraded visuals. Gone is the heavily penciled-in comic book style and is now replaced with full Unreal 3D glory with a semi-realistic approach. To truly enjoy Star Trek: Resurgence it all comes down to personal expectations (as usual), so the sane approach (which I took) is to leave any form of system interaction at the door going in. And if you can do that, you are in for a pretty good time!

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Star Wars – Episode III – Revenge of the Sith – It’s Anakin Time

In my yearly Star Wars bender, I decided I wanted to play a game set in the prequel era. It’s unfortunately rather slim picking when it comes to this period if you want to play something new. However, I manage to find Star Wars – Episode III – Revenge of the Sith for the PlayStation 2. It’s a direct tie-in game to the movie that goes under the same name. It was with a certain hesitation that I downloaded it as we know all too well how these kinds of titles end up. But hey, what do I get to lose, anyway? Well, as it turns out only valuable gaming time, taking me one step closer to death with nothing gained. I should have trusted the force when it told me something dark awaited me.

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Stasis: Bone Totem – Atlantean Rumble

What do you get if combine meaty body horror, Lovecraft, and Atlantean mythology sprinkled with Blade RunnerThe Descent, and Alien? Well, you get Stasis: Bone Totem. This is the Brotherhood’s third game in the Stasis franchise – a point & click horror adventure series that doesn’t shy away from showing the macabre and the gruesome in all its glory. So far, so good, and you can read the thoughts of the developers in an interview I made with them here. However, it saddens me to say, that there are some problems with this title. While it maintains the horror in both atmosphere and story, the game falters and stumbles in the feature most critical to gaming: the gameplay.

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Solasta: Crown of the Magister [DLC] Palace of Ice – Soraks Forever

The evil Soraks are back, and they are meaner and greener than ever! Palace of Ice is another story DLC for Solasta: Crown of the Magister. Unlike Lost Valley, this one is a direct continuation of the original campaign instead of being a standalone adventure. This means that you get the chance to import your old dungeon-crawling crew if you still got the save file laying around. I had to start up an old computer of mine to find the save as it was a long time since I played it. And thank the Lord I found it. The thought of going through the main campaign again just to experience Palace of Ice would have been very demoralizing. Not that the main adventure is all bad, but one take was enough for me. And yes, you are allowed to create a new party, but my weird gaming autism would have prevented me from doing so.

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