Review: AI: The Somnium Files – The Nirvana Initative (Switch) ~ Let’s Dive Again

Official English website – Wikipedia page

One of my most favorite genres is an adventure visual novel. A game with a deep story with memorable characters and unique gameplay that draws you into the world of the game. Examples are Corpse Party where a cursed school plays tricks on your mind or Ace Attorney where you play as an attorney that takes on the strangest cases. I could list examples here for quite a while, like Time Hollow, where you get a pen that can mess with the past in certain circumstances. My favorite series in this genre are the Nonary games. I sometimes quote various moments to this day. I was beyond excited that after the trilogy ended, a new series by the same writer started in 2019. AI: The Somnium Files. Now, after I finished that game, I couldn’t wait to see what Kotaro Uchikoshi and his team were going to turn out next. And that is a sequel to AI: The Somnium Files, which picks up 6 years after the original game. But is it any good, or is this a sequel that we should avoid? Well, that’s what I want to talk about in this review. This review is spoiler free, so if you haven’t played the game… You shouldn’t worry about that. But in any case, let’s dive right into the game while I welcome you to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

Editoral note: this game also released on all other major platforms. I chose to play this game on Switch since I played the original on Switch as well.

Have you played?

In the original game, you took on the role of Date. An investigator at ABIS with a special AI companion implanted in his eye. Now, in this game, that isn’t really the case anymore since the focus is more on daughter Mizuki. In this game, you also play as Ryuki who is another investigator at ABIS. Both these agents are involved in a cold case which they are trying to solve for their own reasons. After the case going cold, suddenly 6 years later a new clue is found that totally reopens the cold case. So, why did the case turn into a cold case and why suddenly after 6 years are there new clues found?

In terms of explaining the story, that’s all I’m willing to say to avoid spoilers. I know I might be cutting it a bit short or being extremely vague, but this is a sort of game where you should go in as blind as possible. The story in visual novel adventure games like this one are best experienced as blind as possible. At least, that’s the way how I enjoy it the best. And sidenote, to avoid spoilers I’m going to explain some things in this article with rather generic terms instead of the in game terms.

Something that really surprised me in the opening few minutes of the game is that there is something implemented that is something I think should become a standard in other visual novel games. A sort of check to avoid spoilers of the original game. Since this game is a sequel, there is a potential that people start with this game before the original. And if you won’t get yourself spoiled on the previous game, certain pieces of dialogue are changed if you are unable to answer the questions about the ending of the previous game. Then, it skips over the dialogue that spoils parts of the previous game. Apart from a few lines, it doesn’t change too much, so you won’t be missing out if you answer the question or not.

In terms of writing, this game really delivers. The new characters don’t feel out of place at all. I honestly sometimes felt that the new characters were background characters in the original game… The voice acting in this game is one of the strongest points of this game. They make the characters come to live and pull me in the game’s world so hard. There are some weaker moments in this story, but overall, these are far and few between. In general, this pacing and story of this game is good.

Something that’s really great in this game is that there is a sort of glossary. When you forgot who a certain character is or what a certain word means, you can easily look it up in your file. There is some amazing value in there as well. So, I highly recommend reading through it.

Explore the dreams

Just like in the previous game, in this game you have to explore people’s dreams to find answers and clues for your investigation. If you played the previous game, it’s very familiar. In these explorations, you have 6 minutes to unlock the mental locks of a person to find the big clue that’ll let you progress into the game. Each interaction costs a certain amount of time, so you have to be careful and really think your actions through.

You do have 3 “retry coins” you can spend to travel back to a previous checkpoint. So, if you mess up, and you want to restart a certain section with a bit more time, you can travel back. If you don’t have enough retry coins or game-over, you’ll have to restart from you’re the start of the exploration. Also, in these explorations, it’s possible that the story splits into two paths. Now, I highly recommend that you explore all paths to the end before going to another path.

There are some additional mechanics during these explorations that can influence the time used, but that mechanic is somewhat underused in this game compared to the original. I played this game on the highest difficulty setting and to be honest, while the puzzles are interesting and a blast to figure out… I found them a bit too easy. Furthermore, I have to admit that I had to write some puzzles down on a piece of paper, but rarely did I get stuck or didn’t know right away how to solve a puzzle. The original game was more challenging.

With that said, it doesn’t mean that with easier puzzles that this game is less fun. Maybe I got lucky in figuring them out, or the experience of solving these puzzles from the previous game helped me out here.

Something I really like is when you full beat one of these dives, you unlock that dive without any time limitations. So, I can find out what the dialogue is in the wrong options and enjoy more of the enjoyable writing of this game.

This game controls extremely well. I don’t have any complaints on how this game controls. There is one minor complaint I have. There is one mini-game in the pause menu, which you can’t select by going through the menu. For the longest time, I thought I was able to only play this in handheld mode, but you just have to press the minus button on the controller to enter it. But I’ll talk more in depth about the mini-games and such later in the article.

So, these explorations in people’s minds isn’t the only mechanic in this game. There are also reconstructions you have to do. This is where you have to search for clues in a crime scene to answer a question. These moments are a lot less punishing since they don’t have a time limit.

These moments are a nice distraction to the game. Since, they help to sell that there is actual investigation work going. Yet, some of the hardest puzzles are in these sections. But, if you get stuck, the biggest hint I can give is to write the puzzle down. In these sections, there were one or two puzzles that would work a lot better if you were able to look at the clues, so that’s why I highly recommend you to write them down.

Another gameplay section of this game are the moments with quick time events. These moments are easily the weakest link of this game. I found these moments a bit boring since they are basically an interactive cutscene. You know when they are coming and these moments would have been so much more fun if they weren’t quick time events since they slow the scene down when they happen and these scenes are supposed to be fast paced actually. I’m sorry, but the implementation of the quick time event scenes in this game isn’t the best in this game. All these moments blend in with each other a bit too well.

Now, you can change the difficulty of the quick time events and the exploration moments. So, if you want to focus more on the story instead of the gameplay, that’s totally possible. Lowering the difficulty makes the game easier since it has less penalties for you. The game doesn’t lock any content away from you by lowering the difficulty.

The final gameplay section you have in this game is the investigation section. Where you go from place to place, so you can talk to the various characters to gather more information. During these moments, you can look around and investigate the environment for additional world & character building, jokes and dialogues.

These moments are just the right length. I never really felt that the conversation went on for a bit too long. Also, you can save during at any time during these moments, so when you have to leave the game and want to come back, you can comeback to a save point. This game also saves automatically. But speaking about saving and loading, this game has only one save slot. So, don’t forget about that.

Costumes and such

The music and sound design in this game is quite enjoyable. The music fits this game as a glove. I have already added it to my playlist, so I can listen to it while I’m working.

In terms of sound effects, the high quality is there as well. I don’t have any complaints about them. Most of the sound effects are just like the previous game, and they worked extremely well there.

Visually, this game looks excellent. There are some very minor rough spots, especially in low lighting, but they didn’t bother me too much. Overall, the visuals fit the atmosphere of the game extremely well. The new locations created for this game fit extremely well in the world. The animations in this game are great as well. I did notice some minor animation flaws here and there, especially with the mouths not always closing after some dialogue. But on the other hand, they help put the expression of the character come to life.

Now, let me talk about the performance of this game. Overall, I noticed barely any performance problems during my playthrough. There was some minor slowdown here and there and I felt like some cutscenes ran at a bit lower framerate compared to the rest of the game but overall, nothing really major in that regard. The game did crash on me. Three times even. Thankfully on moments where I didn’t loose to much progress but it did happen.

This game took me around 35 hours to complete and also to see some of the additional content. So, I think that the price is totally worth it.

One of the last things I want to talk about are the mini-games and the DLC. There is DLC for this game in the forms of alternative customes for the AI assistants in this game. Overall, the additional content is quite cheap but it’s 100% costmetic. If you are a fan of silly alternative customs, they are the right fit for you.

Now, during the game you can unlock eyeballs. With these eyeballs you can purchase the unlocked costmetic items via the bonus menu in the main menu. You can also unlock concept art and other materials. Some of these items even have some easter eggs in them!

What you can buy with these eyeballs depend on your progress in the game. Now, something I really like is how you are unable to unlock everything when you have seen the true ending of this game. You’ll have to go back into the game to go in alternative routes and maybe try the wrong options to have a new evalution. There are in total 40 evaluations to unlock and completing the true ending, I still had 16/40 left to find.

The only dissapointing thing is that there are barely any hints in the game to find these remaining endings. I think it would be a nice feature if you are able to see on which day you can unlock that evalution after you have seen the true ending. This doesn’t take away the challenge of searching for the ending since each day has a lot of content to go through.

There are two “mini-games” in this game. One is a sort of advice room where the AI assistant of the character you are playing as plays a sort of shrink for you as the player. I rarely used this mode apart from it also being the dressing room of the costumes you bought. The combinations you can make with dressing up your AI ball are numerous. I just wish that there was a button to “sync” costumes between them.

Anyways, there is one other mini-game I have to talk about. This is a sort of Tamagochi where depending on how you answer the questions, your tamagochi AI-ball evovles into different AI-balls. Each 20 minutes you get a question. You have four different possible replies. Depending on your replies, a certain stat increases and you can get another creature. Since, it all depends on the stats you increase. You can also unlock a guide when you reach a certain type which can help you unlock all the others. It’s an enjoyable destraction to the game but apart from it being a nice source of eyeballs to purchase costumes, I found that there is nothing really to it. While I can totally see some people enjoying this, I’m not one of those.

Overall, in this article I have mostly praised this game. But, there are a few things that don’t work at all and can be improved in a patch or a sequel. The first big thing is the small font of the option menu. If you play this game in docked mode and sit a meter of two (which is +/- 6 feet), the option screen becomes close to unreadable. Thankfully, there is a zoom feature on the Switch and the top right infobox gives some hints… But still, that menu is too small. If they wanted to keep the same visual design, just make more pages with a bigger font.

A nitpick I have is that when something is added to the file, and it’s in the manual… The green dot is so close to the binder of the manual that you can barely see it. I think changing the color of the manual in the file would have been a great move.

Another nitpick I have is when you go to the bonus section from the main menu, you only see Aiba there. I have never seen the other AI-ball there. I found this a missed oppertunity. It would be kind of fun to have a random chance to see either Aiba or Tama there.

The final thing I dislike about this game is that there is no real run button in this game. You do have a skip button, that’s pretty close to the “auto” button, but you can’t run in explorations. I would even not mind it with having a run button and it costing twice as much time to move around… Since, the walking speed is a bit slow when you are playing again to find the other endings.

So, with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. So, I think it’s high time to wrap up this article in a nice conclusion so people who are looking at this article to know if this game is any good or not and don’t want to read everything have something to quickly read.

Conclusion

The good:

+ Enjoyable story where you can avoid spoilers of the original.

+ Amazing soundtrack.

+ Creative puzzles.

+ Great controls.

+ …

The bad:

-Some slowdowns/crashes can happen on the Switch version.

-Too small options menu.

-Missed chances with quick time events.

-Some minor issues in terms of polish like one of the mini-games being reachable with a button instead of it being highlighted when scrolling through.

Final thoughts:

To answer the question I posed in my introduction, I think that this game is a worthy sequel to the original game. The game is quite a lot of fun to play and I had a blast playing it. The game has it’s weaker moments but those overall are no big issue compared to the overall package. This sequel can also be a great entry point into the series and there are a lot of winks to veteran fans.

There are some issues for sure and the story has some weaker moments but I might repeat myself but the positive and fun moments far outweigh the negative moments. I enjoyed this game so much when it finally released here in Europe that I even pulled an all nighter during my summer break while playing this game. It’s so much fun.

Thanks to it releasing in my summer break, I have already beaten the game and now I’m looking for the things I missed but so far, it’s one of the best games I have played all year.

Personally, I highly recommend this game to everybody who enjoys adventure and/or visual novel games. This sci-fi thriller story is a blast to play through. This game comes also recommended if you enjoy playing mystery solving games. The original game now has a demo as well on the Switch eShop and if you enjoy that, this game or the original are going to be such an amazing time!

With that said, I really have said everything I wanted to say about this game. I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 90/100

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First Impression: Corpse Party 2 – Dead Patient (Steam) ~ And Then It Happened.

Wikipedia entry – Steam page

I think it’s no secret that I’m a Corpse Party fan if you read my blog. When I review horror or horror-themed games, I find myself referencing the series. I have also written articles on almost every Corpse Party game. Now, when I noticed that Corpse Party 2 was in development,  I was beyond hyped. I was disappointed when it looked like the series wasn’t going to get an English release. But, then a miracle happened. Around Halloween of last year, Corpse Party 2 – Dead Patient appeared on Steam with an English version! So, is this indie game worth your time and money to play or is this game better left forgotten? Let’s find out in this first impression article, written after I have finished the first episode that’s currently available on Steam. 

Editorial note: At this current point of writing, I have “finished” the game. What I mean with that is that only the first episode and a bonus episode have been released and I have finished both those episodes. Now, as far as we know, more episodes are on their way but it’s unknown when since this is a hobby project. Since we don’t have the full game yet, I have decided that this article is going to be a first impression rather than a review. 

And Then It Happened.

Five years after the events in the Heavily Host arc, Ayame Itou finds herself waking up strapped to a hospital bed without a lot of her memories. When she gets loose from the operating table, she is unable to find a soul in the “Amare Patriarcha Crucis” hospital. After some exploration of the hospital, strange things start to happen. With all exits barricaded off, Ayame finds herself in a sort of Heavenly Host – Hospital Edition with a twist. This time not only ghosts are haunting the hospital but something has happened to the other patients, something that really complicates things.

Some parts of the story really caught me off guard. There are moments in this game that made me jump. The pacing of the dialogues is such a breath of fresh air compared to the previous entries in Corpse Party. Some dialogues, while extremely well written, could drag on and on. But not in this game. Most of the dialogues get right to the point.

It didn’t take long before I was well immersed in the story of this game. While two characters were arguing I had a hard time choosing which character to root for since they both had amazing points.

I’m really holding myself back in not spoiling the big things that happen in the game since the blinder you go into the story, the better it is. That’s why I kept my plot description as vague as I could.

Now, I can totally understand that some people aren’t going to be happy to see a game with only one (and a half) episode released without any information when the next episode(s) are going to be released. Especially when you are able to beat the first episode and the bonus episode in 2 to 4 hours.

Unfinished options

So, the game is rather short in its current state. While a huge part of Steam reviews mention that as one of the biggest negatives, there is something else that comes up quite often in the reviews as well. The lack of communication is another thing that’s mentioned in the reviews.

In a few reviews, players talked about the issue that you were unable to play in full screen. Now, you can play this game on full screen but the issue is with awkward UI design. The UI of the game isn’t the best.

To adjust your screen resolution, you have to start the configuration tool. There, the game starts out by the Japanese language by default. For some strange reason, this tool is able to remember your display setting but not the language. If you want to play this game with an XBOX-controller, you have to choose XInput.

But that isn’t the strangest thing. You don’t have an “options” button in the main menu of the game. While you do have that feature while you are playing the game, there are two options you can’t adjust in there. While you can change the controller you use to play the game and the language of the game, you are unable to change the screen resolution and the frame rate cap. I would really love to see the whole configuration tool implemented in the game.

Since you can use that options menu to also change your control bindings. I really think those options are at home in that menu. Now, to finish my thoughts on the options menu, I have two other “complaints”. The first is that you are unable to change the bindings for the keyboard controls and secondly, there is no sample that plays when you adjust the voice volume to test out if your sound mixing/balance is good enough.

Before I continue about other things, I have a minor nitpick. But, the music of the game keeps playing when you minimize the game or alt/tab out of it. Then again, I don’t think that it’s such a big deal since the soundtrack of this game is really enjoyable. The soundtrack really fits the theme that the previous games in the series have set. While some are quite creepy, some are really action-packed and give off some punch. Coupled with good sound effects, the sound design of this game gets a thumbs up from me.

But there are some other things that I think could have improved the user experience quite a bit. First of all, a skip button for already seen dialogue when you replay that chapter to find the other endings would be lovely. Also, there is no message on the screen when you found a certain ending. Apart from the achievement box showing on the screen, it’s credits and back to the main menu with you.

I’m crossing my fingers that when the next episodes drop, there are going to be some quite of life updates as well since I think that this game can become a real gem when the rough edges are polished up a bit more.

That ending

Now, I can totally understand that you think that this game isn’t a lot of fun to play after you read the last section. But, the opposite is true. This game is a lot of fun to play.

The controls might be a little bit stiff sometimes, especially when trying to interact with objects. But, those moments are quite infrequent. I really liked the control scheme of this game and I got used to it really quickly. I found it strange that I was able to run all the time without almost any penalty.

Speaking of running, the run is extremely useful to outrun the almost braindead enemies. Yes, there are enemies in this game but the AI isn’t the greatest. The enemies in the previous entries of the Corpse Party series were more a lot more difficult than in this game. But, is that a problem? On one hand, you could say that it makes this game a bit too easy but on the other hand you can also say that it’s only the first episode so you need to get used to the enemies. So yeah, you can look at it from two different perspectives.

The difficulty in this game is the puzzles and decisions. Both of them are amazing. The really feel right at home in the Corpse Party series. If you played the previous Corpse Party games, you will feel right at home while playing this game.

Now, the visual presentation of this game is quite nostalgic. Visually, this game looks like some old school DS and 3DS games. The visual presentation reminded me of games like Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. I can understand that there are people who won’t enjoy this visual presentation but I find a certain charm in it. The animations are equally as retro and that only adds to the charm.

All in all, I really enjoyed playing this game and I can’t wait to see more chapters to this game. I think that if people give this game a chance and spread the word about it, that the developers see that there is an audience waiting for the next chapter and that we might see more information sooner than later.

I highly recommend this game to everybody who enjoys horror-themed games, adventure games, Corpse Party fans and people who love games with a rich story and/or lore. But, know that the game is a bit rough around the edges at certain points and is at the moment of writing, quite light on content.

And with that, I have said everything I wanted to say in this article. I think I’ll write a more in-depth and updated article when the game is fully finished but for now, I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Publishing: NTales’ Sets Another BIG Content Updates!

If you’re thinking you already got all NTales’ offerings? Think again… RuleMakr, the developer behind NTales: Child of Destiny has recently launched its biggest update yet!

Yes, you read that right. New content and features arrived in NTales that will surely get Saviors scrambling to login to the game. From impressive log-in and loading screens, the addition of guild buffs, battle and main menu enhancement and pet skills update, there is no time for laid-back gaming as helping Queen Laminia save the Kingdom of Lancia must be prioritized.

What’s New in NTales?

• Guild Skills!
  • Guild Master and Guild Buff Implemented! Upgrading and acquiring guild skills via using guild medals for all members.
• Battle UI Changes!
  • Those hindering or covering the battle screen are moved to the menu screen making some icons smaller so the gameplay screen can be more visible and bigger as you play the game.
• Main Menu UI Change
  • The Main Menu was improved and all are packed in one screen with other features of the game.
• Improved Pet Skill Description
  • Added a more specific description for the pet skills: damage skills, buffs, and debuffs turns in effect, etc.
• And many more!

Guild Masters are also in for a surprise. Guild Buff is already implemented in the game. See for yourself how stronger your guild has become. Earn more Guild Medals for higher Guild Skills can acquire.

Those hindrances and some icons in the game were already compressed into one! A bigger screen to play and now a great view for any battle that you want. Also, game menus were already packed into separate views from the battle screen to a menu screen with some features for the better gaming experience.

We know you want more! Pets are now having detailed information specification, description for skills, damages buffs and debuffs. See more of it as you play NTales: Child of Destiny.

Not enough? Well, the NTales team has also announced that they have prepared and opened fun events for everyone where they will give away sought-after items for free! Join now!

Time to get back to NTales: Child of Destiny by downloading it from Google Play. Be sure to follow the official Facebook Page for more news and announcements of the events!

Creative Christmas #8: Nomnomnom

So, now that we had the Christmas party and the gifts, I think it’s time for food. Oh, I am not allowed to go on the dinner table when I don’t come up with a theme for these articles? Man, that’s unfair. I’m writing in a creative matter here while you would be able to enjoy the delicious foods served. I’m trying my best to come with a good idea for this LaterLevels collab you know. So, please let me eat while I think of a theme and answer today’s question.

It’s now time to head out to the kitchen to put on your oven gloves and start preparing Christmas dinner. It consists solely of video game food; what’s on the menu?

Besides pre-heated stuff and a few extremely basic things, I haven’t cooked on a day in my life. I haven’t played a lot of games that talk about food either. So, I had to look through my game collection for an answer.

One thing is for sure, most of the things I remember in terms of food are the strange food things happening. Like in Stella Glow, how Lisette’s cooking always turns purple or how Chloe only wants to eat meat in Etrian Odyssey Untold 2.

One game that involves cooking in a way is Minecraft, but that would be a bit cheap to put the food items of that game on the list. Since most of the food items in that game are food items you can eat in real life. Besides the purple fruits, but do you want to teleport to another location each time you take a bite out of your meal.

So, instead of giving a long explanation of which types of food I would like, I think it would be a great idea to make any of the foods in Breath of the Wild. Actually, if you want to make them in real life, don’t worry. I know an excellent blog you can use for that! It’s called Sheikah Plate.

As an appetizer, I could take some glazed veggies, as a main dish I could take some salt-grilled gourmet meat and some apple pie as a desert.

That could be one possibility. Since I’m playing Etrian Odyssey Untold 2 lately, it would be fun to give foods I would love to try in the real world. Here you find an overview of everything in the game. Beware of possible spoilers though when you click that link.

Here are a few screenshots of the pieces of food I would love to try:

Of course, there is a lot more I would love to try from the menu, but eating it all would be impossible I think.

The food in Monster Tale also sounds quite interesting, to be honest. But, you feed it to your monster pet to let it grow. So, I think I better not eat that, since I think there are some special growth hormones in it.

(Talking about food, dear Glados, you still owe me a cake!)

Before I end this, the food I wouldn’t put on my menu are the following:

• Any meat from the Castlevania series. You never know it came from a wall or a monster drop.
• Anything from FallOut, the radiation would be off the charts. No thanks.
• A bottle of Pepsi from the Pepsi Man, that will be shaken up as all heck. So, I don’t want soda in my face.

I think you get the idea. In any case, I think I’ll leave it here. To be honest, I don’t know enough about food to make a decent and long article so, I think this is the best answer that I can come up with. Besides, in almost all the games I play, the food is somewhat realistic so far as I can remember.

So yeah. Forgive me for a shorter article. In any case, I thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on my blog but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Rant #002: Broken Menus

Don’t you just love it? You are playing a game and the menus are all glitched up? Like in this screenshot, where the “Done” button is too stubborn to move. This is a curse that many modders have in Minecraft. But in my current playthrough of certain games, I have encountered some issues with menus for me to talk about in this rant. But before I continue, what problems did you guys have had with menus before? Let me know in the comments. Maybe I’ll add them in a follow-up article if I ever write one. So let’s dive into the menu and my rant about them. 

Standard menu’s?

I often ask myself, why do developers not have some rules about the menu’s? I recently tried out Call Of Duty and the options to change the controls are separate. Great, I looked over it since I expected them to be under an options tab.

All the menu’s in the games are different. I have no big issue with that. The might try to fit the style of the game. But, the issue is mainly that all options have a different spot in each game. What really makes me nervous is when developers don’t give you a chance to play a game in a windowed mode or in full screen. Some games stay full screen anyways. Or when you can’t change the screen sizes to the screen size of your monitor.

A big example of a bad menu design is Overlord. Yes, for the options there are two menus. Awesome! But the most useful options like screen size and the changing of buttons is in the launcher and you can’t access that in-game. This made me close and restart the game often to try to really fit the controls to my likeness.

To accept or not to accept?

Why do so many games have menus where you need to click on “accept” before the changes happen? For older games, I can forgive that, but in more recent games I have seen so many examples where the game changes the settings as soon as you change the setting. Even a preview button would be sweet.

This extremely confuses me, to the extent where I look in every game for an accept button or I get mad went the changes didn’t happen because I missed the “accept” button.

Another annoying example is how messy the Devil May Cry menus are. The buttons to accept options are, well displayed if they would be on a controller. What is the holy name of flying cows? Not everybody has an XBOX guy so, not everybody has a controller to attach to their computer.

This actually gives me the opportunity to do a small additional rant. Who plays with a controller on a computer? For emulators, yes, but for PC games? Oh heck no, this just silly. That shows to me that you rather have the console version. It’s so silly to sit there with a controller when you have a whole array of buttons to press on your keyboard.

Tooltips

Tooltips are a great way of letting the player know what option does what. But oh so many games don’t have this. They just throw the option in your face and you have to guess what it is.

What I really like is how some sound menus have a sample that plays when you lower or raise the volume. All those games need to have that, it’s great to just tweak it to your heart’s content.

But truth to be told, you have games where the menus are so extreme, that it’s a game in itself to navigate them. Most sandbox games like SimCity have this. Where you are actually playing with the menu most of the time.

RollerCoaster Tycoon, the first game, has a big issue with menu’s as well. Each option is a menu. You can open a menu by almost clicking anywhere in-game. It’s extremely difficult to keep track of them all and I find the screen get easily cluttered with menus. And there is no real way of closing them all at once.

I can agree that some games are lacking options. But I will mention that in my reviews then. I think I’m going to leave it here for this rant. Actually with my conclusion.

Menus can be messy, different and not easy to navigate. There is a lot of improvement in this part of gaming. But once you see some touches in other games, you get annoyed that some games don’t have them. I realize that I haven’t talked about how bad the menus can be on Kinect games, and that’s simply because I don’t own one.

So, that’s all for this rant. Happy gaming and NekoJonez signing out!