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Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder Review (PC)

Genre: Adventure/Point 'n' Click

Developer: Zoetrope Interactive

Publisher: Lighhouse Interactive

Release Year: 2007

System: PC

At last after many hours of searching trying and aborting many wannabe adventure/horror/point'n'click games i finally found out this masterpiece! Im surprised with all my ignorance all these years for this adventure lovecraftian gem, because im a huge fan of Lovecraft's work, but never it's too late i guess. I bought it surprisingly cheap and gave it a go in an instance. One more good thing about it, is that it is one of the very few games i tried lately and it worked without any unexpected errors, crashes, glitches etc. Despite the 10 years that it has on its back it seems to run pretty smoothly on an windows 8.1 system!

PLOT: 10/10

As police detective Howard E. Loreid, you are tasked to solve the murder of Clark Field, a wealthy man involved in the occult. Your number one suspect is Loath Nolder, a highly respected private investigator. After mysteriously abandoning his last case and abrutply resurfacing five years later one wonders how venerated P.I. Loath Nolder has turned fugitive murder suspect. Your seemingly routine investigation takes a dramatic twist as terrifying happenings begin to plague your psyche. Staying true to the original author's atmosphere, the plot is a genuine child of Lovecraft's work as if he wrote it himself. There even similar names to his as he used to do in his writings. Not much more to say here, the rating speaks itself.

GAMEPLAY: 9/10

The gameplay is like those we have seen on so many gems of the genre like Dracula, Scratches etc. With 360' angle to turn around and still environments to explore. You have your inventory in your right click and you interact with ur environment by left clicking. The really nice addition to the gameplay is the way that you collect clues through letters and notes. You actually rea them underline the important things and think about them! Other than that there are the choices to combine stuff in your invenotry or with your surroundings. Just one of my hesitant thoughts here is that maybe they could make clue collecting process somewhat easier (when it comes to where you click and all that).

GRAPHICS: 7/10

The graphics of Darkness Within is what would someone expect of development companies that we dont see very often. They are pretty decent for what they want to give us imagine and narrate. Nothing more or nothing less. They are pretty and stiff in formal rooms such as offices and dark gothic and grotesque in more threatening and unfriendly territories. Only when it comes to the cutscenes we are reminded that maybe this games was a low budget production. With not so much of a texture depth and stiff movement it reminds games even 5 years back of its release.

MUSIC/ATMOSPHERE: 10/10

Its music and atmosphere couldnt be better! Eerrie, stressful and ominus piano keys cello strings and many more are there to highlight every action from the clues discoveries that you makes as you progress to the windy drafts of dark basements. The sound is dressing really creepy what the story wants to tell us without overeacting and there is to raise every single hair on our backs when it must!

OVERALL: 9/10

Without wanting to waste your time (you should paly the game by now and not read those bubbling lines) id say simply that its a games that every H.P. Lovecraft's fan must play as well as every adventure fan. It combines all the classic elements we loved in masterpieces such as Atlantis, Dark Fall, Dracula, The Legend of the Prophets and the Assassins etc. with some really innovative gameplay elements.

PS4 System Software Update 4.50 Features Detailed

Starting today, those of you selected for our beta program will get an early peek at some of the new features coming to PS4 with our next major system software update, version 4.50 (codenamed Sasuke). If you signed up for the beta and were chosen, you’ll receive an email with instructions on how to download and get started.

Even if you’re not participating in the beta, we still wanted to give you a quick glance of the key features that will be rolling out with this update. We’re refining the user interface of PS4 even further, and adding highly requested features like external HDD support and custom wallpapers.

External HDD Support

It’s easy to upgrade the HDD that came with your PS4, but if you’re still looking for more storage space on the console, we’ve got you covered. With this update, you have the option to store content to an external HDD. Just plug a USB 3.0 HDD into your PS4, and voilà, you now have more space on the console.

This is compatible with HDDs up to 8TB in size. You can download and install applications directly to your extra storage, and the saved contents are easily manageable through the settings menu.

Also, all the applications saved in the external HDD will appear in the Content Launcher of the Home Screen so it’s easy to keep track of what apps you launched recently.

Please note: user save files are still stored locally on your PS4 HDD. Only games and applications are stored externally.

Custom Wallpapers

This update adds the ability to set your favorite in-game screenshot as the background image for PS4’s home screen. Drop-shadows on text, and the option to dim the Function Area, will help keep the system icons and texts on the home screen clearly visible even if the background image you selected is super bright.

You can also edit screenshots using Photo Mode in Sharefactory to make your one-and-only custom wallpaper.

Quick Menu Refresh

As you may know, in the last system update we overhauled the PS4 Quick Menu feature (the menu that appears after a long press of the PS button on DualShock 4).

This update brings additional improvements to make it even more accessible. Now the Quick Menu will cover even less of your gameplay screen, and you’ll be able to access handy Party features via Online Friends, like creating new parties, inviting friends, and joining parties, without transitioning to the separate Party app. The goal is to keep you in the game — and not stuck in menus.

Simplified Notification List

Before this update, the Notifications app had a variety of tabs on the left-hand side, like Game Alerts, Downloads, Uploads, and more. We’ve condensed all of the tabs to a single simplified list, making it easier to see all of your notifications all at-a-glance.

You can also quickly access the Notification settings from the Options Menu to turn off or customize which pop-up notifications appear on your screen, so you’re only being notified about your top priorities.

Post on PlayStation Network Activity Feeds 

We’re adding the ability to post directly into the Activity Feed, which appears in a variety of places across the console, including What’s New. Under What’s New, you’ll see a new option to post things like text, screenshots, and gifs directly into your Activity Feed. You can also tag games or other users to make sure they don’t miss your post. It’s a great way to show off your greatest triumphs.

Tying into this new feature, Live from PlayStation will show screenshots that users uploaded to PSN as a Public Activity, so you can show off your best gameplay moments not only to your friends, but to users around the globe.

3D Blu-rays on PlayStation VR

If you’re a fan of 3D movies, and you own PlayStation VR, we’ve got good news — this update adds the ability to view 3D movies in stereoscopic 3D directly on the PS VR headset. Grab some popcorn and enjoy!

There are more features included in 4.50, so make sure to keep an eye out for additional info, including launch timing, in the weeks to come.

Source:Playstation.com

Bring Back Good Old JRPGs!

#WARNING: Contains HATE!

I love the rpg genre and especially the japanese one. Despite that sometimes they can be a little too colorful or seemingly childish i think they stand out due to their almost every time exceptional gameplay and grandiose storylines. I was lucky enough to have played so many jrpgs in my life including some best hits such as Wild ARMs, the early FF series (under Squaresoft), Legend of Dragoon, Breath of Fires series, Hack, Lufia, Grandia etc. 

But nowadays i think that developers are lost inside their own will to stand out with extraordinary and overcomplicated gameplays and battles systems, that they forget what a really attractive gameplay is in the first place! 

For example when i first laid my eyes on Resonance of Fate i was in awe! Amazing steampunk environments, wonderful music, nicely designed characters ... i think thats enough for a first impression. Aaaand here comes the battle system! MY FUCKING DOG! Come on u guys! If you want a character to jump just make a damn command for the jump action, and not press-the-square-to-select-the-anchor-location-and-square-again-to-confirm-then-square-to-jump!!!! Thats just ridiculous! Yes i understand the need to make something innovative but if you make our lives hard just for a jump then its not worth it! I ve found myself wishing not to find any enemies cos the battle system is too needlessly tiresome! 

And what's with the leveling thing?! Why do you have to mess with everything?! Sphere levels, profession levels and shit! A character battles, he gains EXP he levels up. SO SIMPLE!!! Everybody can make his life hard, we dont need u companies to do that for us! We need you to entertain us so be fucking entertaining!

Oh I almost forgot! *Grabs a Megaphone: A world map is a world map! We need a damn environment so we can explore it in real time by controling the main character! We dont need focking 2D shitty pics to move around like on a boardgame.. guess what if u need that WE'D PLAY A FOCKING BOARDGAME!!! Give a damn FF9 world map to show you what it means to explore outside of towns! 

And if you think that im exaggerating i dare you! Play a battle of Grandia 2 and the a battle of FFXIII and if you enjoy the gameplay of the second one better then i ll donate all of my collection of games! (kidding it's not my fault if you are screwless)!