El Paso, Elsewhere

This game is a tricky one for me to recommend. While I did thoroughly enjoy the story, the writing, and the gameplay honoring the legendary Max Payne, I felt that I was playing it for WAY longer than I should have. Pros: -- Incredible story. I won't spoil much, but I'll just say that this game depicted an abusive relationship, and how it effects someone after leaving it, scarily well. I felt myself weeping along with the protag as he copes with the feelings and memories all crashing down on him. And, for being a action-heavy shooter game, El Paso, Elsewhere's biggest strength for me was its narrative and writing. --Satisfying gunplay. If you like Max Payne, this game will satiate you. The bullet time is oh-so smooth and headshots feel MEATY in this game. It's so fun to leap into a room, pop slo-mo, and blast heads left and right. Takes me right back to that fateful New York night... Cons --♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ this game should have ended 30 levels ago. There are 50 levels to play through. And all of them are somewhat repetitive. The gunplay is amazing, but the maps in which you do it don't feel very good. they start to feel rather same-y, no matter what crazy shapes the hotel contorts itself into. It is exhausting to play the whole thing and I found myself skipping entire fights because I just wanted to get to the next cutscene and see what happened next. This game is worth playing, just like any Strange Scaffold game. But know the length going into it. It overstays its welcome for far too long, and I feel that's a lesson that the devs are beginning to learn. But if you can forgive the length, as I could, you'll find a tragic and well-written game with elements that become something much greater than the sum of their parts.

Игра вообще не оправдала мои ожидания. Всё скучное, однотипное и будто сырое. Может, кому-то это и зайдёт, но не мне. Игра вообще никак не затянула. Если и брать, то только по большой скидке. За полную цену – точно не стоит

What a phenomenal game. Since I prefer more grounded settings, initially I was skeptical of the whole supernatural setup with vampires and werewolves and whatnot. But man... The narrative ended up being extremely compelling, by the end I genuinely cared about the fate of the characters, I can definitely see why they're considering making a movie adaptation. The voice acting is superb, the music had my jaw on the floor multiple times, and the gameplay is near perfect - it's one of those rare games where you eventually enter a flow state and the character becomes an extension of yourself. I can already tell I'll miss this one so I'm glad they announced the sequel.

Finally got around to this one since it's been sitting in the backlog for ages but a sequel was just announced. Wild ride from start to finish, every level feels like a dreamscape, the narrative is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane but does exactly what it needs to do every step of the way and genuinely captures every thought and feeling of an abusive relationship. The gameplay itself is pretty damn good too - the Max Payne comparisons are obvious but the level design feels much more Doom-like. Phenomenal stuff, definitely looking forward to seeing where they take it from here.

For a tribute to the early Max Payne games I can't help but lament the fact that this game is longer than both MP1 and MP2 combined. And James Savage's lines certainly aren't as poetic or as memorable as Max's, which is a bit of a shame. Still, this is a decent game, although the art style falls flat for me and the enemies feel either too easy or too annoying to fight against. Worth buying if you enjoy old Max Payne, skip otherwise.

A developers poorly disguised, self-insert, Max Payne style fan fiction.

Pretty unique lofi/surreal twist on Max Payne, with an an enticing premise and a fantastic presentation. The actual gameplay wobbles between feeling trivial (slomo+pistol headshots) and absurd troll traps (triple enemy spawns that can one-shot combo you instantly if you dont know whats coming and have the right weapon ready). There's also a LOT of animation locks and nothing cancels anything, which makes stuff like melee (which is occasional mandatory or your last resort) pretty janky and riskier than it should be. Bullets dont trace from your camera, but from your characters gun with a significant offset, so occasionally hitting something directly under your crosshair can feel awkward. Most of the arena/exploration encounters are really fun. Theres also two boss encounters, i really didn't like the first and the last one felt a lot easier (and better, with better checkpointing) by comparison.

I mean...it's Max Payne 1, but on acid.