Papers, Please

Introduction

            In this tenth game review of this blog, we shall be looking at a game praised for its utter simplicity and superb gameplay, for its price. This game is called: Papers, Please.

 

            Papers, Please is an indie adventure game that tells the story of a immigration officer who has recently been appointed to his post by a state-sponsored lottery of a fictional country known as Artstotzka. The player is then put into his shoes, approving or denying access of foreigners and natives alike from going into the country of Arstotzka during his working shift from 6am to 6pm of in-game time (of course), this is done in the game by checking their passports and relevant documents, and if these documents are in check, allow him/her access, if not, deny him/her access. Although this task may seem like a boring and droll task, this is just the base gameplay of Papers, Please.

 

A normal day in Artstotzka

            What Papers, Please does fantastically well is how it constantly challenges the player’s moral conscience by making the player struggle to think whether what they’re doing is right or wrong, and oftentimes these decisions differ from all players, meaning each outcome is different for every individual, resulting in a part of the story being the work of the player and their morals, which definitely helps makes this game stand out from the other indie games. Although the story is pretty short, it does have certain branched out sections that allow for a unique (although slightly lacking) story experience. There are also 20 different endings for this game, and experiencing each would mean racking up many hours of gameplay whilst struggling to wonder if the guy in front of you should be allowed or denied access.

 

To approve, or to deny.

Goat Simulator (A COMPLETELY SERIOUS REVIEW)

            I gladly bring to all of you, the audience, the next serious review among the throngs of serious reviews worldwide of the extremely serious game that has been released on 1^st of April and has taken the world by storm and ravaged game reviewers all across the fair land. This game is none other than Goat Simulator!

Left 4 Dead 2 (DELAYED AS USUAL)

Introduction

             Welcome one and all to the newest, and slightly delayed, review to grace this gaming blog of mine. I definitely have a problem with keeping with scheduled releases of these reviews on Sundays, mainly because I sometimes lack inspiration and the feeling of writing and just abandon it altogether and wait till the next Sunday, but that will not suffice, and thus I bring to you this new review, and it may be a day late, but better late than… next Sunday.

            This week’s game of particular focus is an all-time classic, with its huge fanbase (a respectable one even today!), offers spectacularly solid gameplay, had a recent free giveaway for every copy (wow!) and is part of the zombie game genre. Of course, many of you would have guessed it by now. That game is… Left 4 Dead 2.

 

Took me some time to realise the thumb is missing

            Left 4 Dead 2, also known as L4D2, is the sequel to the original L4D, developed by Valve and released on November 2007. An extremely old game, and you know the saying “old is gold”, and that is what this game definitely falls under. 

L4D2 features several maps, the maps individually are split into 4-5 subparts, with players having to battle their way through the zombie horde in order to reach a “safe-house”, where players can heal up and restore their ammunition supply. In the last subpart, however, players must usually hold up somewhere on the map as they must wait for their rescue party to arrive, which is in the form of a boat, plane and many others. There is usually a center spot within the map where players will mostly hold up in as they contain medical supplies and ammunition. If players are successful in fending off the waves of zombies, they escape and thus “win” the campaign, after which credits will roll showing the statistics of the whole playthrough. The whole aim of the game is pretty much similar to many other zombie genre games, which is to survive and be rescued.

Various load screens posters of various campaigns

The main characters in L4D2 include new characters from the sequel itself, and also the main characters and the maps of the original L4D, updated with better graphics, a bigger variety of weapons and new Special Infected.

L.A Noire (WOOP)

Introduction

            Ever watched shows like Sherlock Holmes and had that fuel and drive and motivation to be an epic investigator within a game that breaks cases single-handedly thanks to your logic and intuition alone? Well, there isn’t such a game.

            But one game that comes close to achieving this is L.A Noire.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 (FINALLY)

Introduction

            After a long and torturous month of study filled with tests and mental tears, I am finally back with more reviews! Sometimes on those long trips back home, I feel so sad that I am unable to do what I like to do, and it’s writing these game reviews! So without further ado, the game of this week is… 

Game Dev Tycoon

Overview

           This week's game review will be of..

            Game Dev Tycoon is a simulation game with the focus of allowing the player to create a multitude of games of different genres on different platforms, and also giving the player the ability to change the level of focus of different aspects of the game being created (e.g. Graphics, dialogues etc.) through sliders. Games that the player releases are reviewed by critics and scores are given out of 10, which affects sales and how people will react to your game.

Where you can't say "don't judge me"

            The game is very unique in what it does, which is giving players an opportunity to be creative, and for a person, like myself, who loves the idea of designing games, this game allows players to do so without spending actual money or having detailed thought.

            The story of the game is set 35 years back in the past, where the gaming industry was slowly forming, in a real-life comparison, this would be around where the first video games were being produced. You’re the boss of your own video game company, meaning you start off with only yourself as the sole game creator. From there, the story paces you up from being a one-man team working in a dusty old garage, to a professional team of game designers hand-picked by yourself who have the potential to create epic games to satisfy every gamer out there.

Sleeping in da garage tonite

You'll be stuck here for a while guaranteed

            The fictional platform releases in the game are somewhat tied into the story aspect, it tells the story of how certain platforms came about and in some, speaks of some controversy that did happen in real life. These platforms are all renamed versions of the SNES, DreamCast, Xbox, PlayStation and the like, all of which are released at a specific time during gameplay.

Cook, Serve, Delicious!

Introduction

            This week’s review will be of...

Food falling from outside the window, but ignore that.

            Cook, Serve, Delicious is an indie game with multiple game elements taken from multiple genres. These genres include action, simulation and strategy, making this game a tri-brid game… YES TRI-BRID. 

            The core mechanics of the game involves the player managing a restaurant (the simulation part), setting the daily menus (the strategy part), through day shifts of the player working from 9am to 10pm every day doing every possible position in the restaurant (the action(?) part) by themselves. 

No caption needed. Wait...

            Players start off as being introduced into a 1-star restaurant within a hotel, and is tasked to work their way up to becoming a 5-star restaurant. The only way the player can advance up the ranks is by completing goals set by the game (e.g. passing health inspection tests from a health inspector that stares into your soul). 

            The food the player can possibly have on the menu is 5 at the start, this increase to 6 when the player progresses through the game. These 6 (eventually) slots can be filled up with foods and drinks, ranging from the humble commoner food called pretzel to the destroy-their-wallet only-for-the-rich-and-classy 5-star lobster. Basically, selling the food is the player’s main source of income (duh!). 

The menu of nicely drawn food

             Money in the game is used to purchase upgrades and kitchen equipment such as fryers, which unlocks certain foods for purchase. Oh yeah, and food must be bought before they can be put on the menu (my middle name is Obvious).

            The main gameplay involves the player working a day shift from 9am to 10pm; the days generally last 15 minutes give or take in real-time. And in these 15 minutes is where you, the player, single-handedly run the restaurant: take orders, make the food, cook the food, throw the trash, set rat traps, and flush toilets. The part that varies the most and is not always the same day in day out is the food itself. A pretzel’s preparation is as simple as dunking well-shaped flour into a tub of hot oil for 5 seconds, while preparing something like a steak takes somewhere around… forever.

 

The pains of a 4-star restaurant

            Okay, enough with the introduction let’s go into deep-fried analysis, get it get it get it?