PixlBit

Respect and spoilers

You know who deserves respect? Anybody who finishes this game. Seriously. While we generally came away from Alundra with really positive feedback, some of those puzzles were either frustratingly difficult to the point of seeming almost unfair, or just trite and boring. Untangling word puzzles to talk to dead saints in a particular order isn't really anybody's idea of a good time, neither are some of those pillar-pushing puzzles. But hey, if you pulled it off and wanted to hear what we thought (or even if you gave up), click on the play button and find out.

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Shipwrecked.

PolyPusher Studios, the Irish developer behind Montague’s Mount, describes its latest project as a “psychological rollercoaster ride through isolation, desolation, and one man’s tortured mind.” Its perception of the game it created doesn’t quite align with the game it actually released, where the rollercoaster is more like rush hour traffic, and the only tortured mind is my own. Montague's Mount is a first-person adventure/puzzle game about a man who awakens on the beach of a deserted fishing island, unable to remember who he is or why he’s there. Promising although the concept sounds, concept only goes so far without the execution to back it up.

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Looking for a hardcore puzzle game? You've found it.

There are casual games, and then there is Toki Tori 2+, the Lord of the Rings of devilish puzzle games: epic, gargantuan, and deep as hell.  It may look cute and innocent at first, but have no doubt, this game is both immensely creative and insanely difficult.  Try as I did, I was ultimately unable to beat it after three weeks of battling its fiendish design.  While I’m disappointed in myself, I realize that a lot of gamers are going to suffer some of the same problems I did with it, and while it’s a great game I have left unfinished, I still have a lot to say about it.

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Ah, nature! Full of peaceful beauty and decimating power!

I am almost, sort of, maybe certain that I am not an idiot, at least not all of the time. I have my moments, though, and Storm gave me quite a few. Pitting my wits against two-dimensional idyllic nature scenes that desperately need my intervention to move fruit from one place to another was an enjoyable and challenging experience until the game’s physics and controls ruined everything.

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My, that’s a polished turd!

Beautiful aesthetics, wonderful music, and just about perfect controls are all you could hope for in a platformer save one very important factor and this eluded me for a while.  I couldn’t figure out with so many great things going on in Pid why I hated it so very deeply.  Eventually I realized that its well-crafted elements were completely overwhelmed by the boring, mediocre, and at times maddening level design.  It’s a shame that the designers primarily focused on the window dressing bits instead of considering all the things you would actually be doing when you play.  Pid struggles with knowing what sort of levels it wants to present, switching from puzzles to difficult platforming to stealth to long periods of just waiting around or running in a straight line.  Each of these disparate level types (and more) are middling at best on their own and when combined are a complete drag.  Pid’s wonderful presentation can’t save it from the tedium packed into every single minute of its tortuous length.

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