Cantillon
Reviews
The Nameless Mod (Windows)
Love letter not addressed to me
The Good
- Huge game world
- Good voice acting
- Humour
- Very meta
The Bad
- Essentially just more Deus Ex gameplay
- Very meta
The Bottom Line
The Nameless Mod is a total conversion for Deus Ex, completely overhauling the game's setting, plot, characters, and even weapons. The game world, called Forum City, is kind of a strange one as it is a metaphor for the online Deus Ex community where Deus Diablo, one of the moderators, has just been kidnapped. It is up to the player, as Trestkon, to find out by whom and why. Because of this setting, you can imagine there are a lot of meta conversations about the base game to be heard. Indeed, heard, as this mod features an enormous amount of quality voice acting, which is arguably one of its strong points. There may be some inferior performances, but, keeping in mind this is a non-professional production, nothing game-breaking.
Whether you like the topics of the conversations probably depends on how much you like to philosophize about Deus Ex and talk about the bizarre. Or what to think of two competing cults, the Llamas and the Goats, which respectively use sporks and foons as desired weapons? Besides the dialogues, there is also a lot to read in books or on computers. No matter how it is delivered, it is always done with a sense of humour. The game world is massive, consisting of fifty-nine new maps with an open world level design. After quite some hours spent in Forum City, I got curious about where I was in the story and consulted a walkthrough, just to find out I was not even halfway. Considering the story branches drastically early in the game because, contrary to Deus Ex, you can really choose which faction to join, it may take a while to beat The Nameless Mod and discover everything it has to offer.
So, is everything great then? Unfortunately not. Upon learning I was not very far in the story yet, I was hit by a feeling of disinterest. I do not care who abducted Deus Diablo nor what ulterior motives any faction has. The fact that I looked up how much longer the game would take makes me think I actually never cared. At first I wondered why. Clearly, a tremendous amount of work and love for its source material has been put into this mod, which was recognized in the good reviews it received. After some consideration, I blame it on the fact that at its core, The Nameless Mod is actually very similar to the base game, from the basic gameplay mechanisms like augmentations, right to the kind of bland environments. Deus Ex was already a tad long, repeating itself, and this mod just drags it out gameplay-wise despite some redeeming qualities. I am not in the habit of extending my time with a game by playing mods, so maybe I just expected too much from this one. There is only so much spoons and forks can do...
By Cantillon on August 11, 2021
Ubinota (Windows)
Charming puzzle game
The Good
- Nice puzzle concept
- Charming graphics
- Soothing music
The Bad
- Thin story
- A bit too long
The Bottom Line
Ubinota is the first game developed by Rotateam, a company founded by two young, French developers. The game oozes charm right from the start, with its cute art and relaxing music, and, despite it being their debut title, the gameplay is solid as well.
The goal of the game is to save houses built on floating islands made out of cubes, from falling down. This is done by painting the cubes, and as such connecting them to a foundation of the same color. A press on the red button makes all uncolored cubes fall down and shows if you solved the puzzle. One small caveat however, the amount of paint is restricted, and you can only paint a certain number of cubes. In the first levels, this is very easy, as there is only one color available, and the island layouts are straightforward, consisting only out of a small amount of cubes. Soon the difficulty level is raised though, with multiple colors sporting different characteristics and challenging cube layouts.
The puzzle mechanics work very good. It is easy to understand what needs to be done, and the interface is self-explanatory. The free-roaming camera makes sure you can study all cubes from every possible angle to find out if the solution in mind will work. A minor downside is that it is not possible to clear all colored cubes at once. The easiest way is to just start over the level but then you lose the viewpoint you were at.
The story on the other hand is not very inspired, as the only thing Lucien, the protagonist painter and wizard apprentice, keeps doing, is complaining how hungry he is. Besides that, the people from whom he is saving the houses are all very obnoxious to him. Makes you wonder why he just doesn't let them fall down. Thumbs up for the cute art during the cut-scenes however.
There are more than enough levels to keep a puzzler busy for some evenings, and because of the increasing difficulty and options, there is always something new lurking around the corner. One last complaint, and maybe a bit of a strange one because everyone wants value for their money, but the game is a bit too long for my personal taste. I have a huge game backlog and would have been OK with five, or six skies instead of seven.
In conclusion, considering this game is free on Steam, there is no reason not to give it a try and be charmed by it.
By Cantillon on August 8, 2020