The Spirit and the Mouse: Cute 3D Puzzle Platformer trying to channel a "Ratatouille"-like atmosphere. You play a Mouse in a quaint French town called Sainte-et-Claire possessed by an Electric Spirit Guardian that has to help humans now. Although there's not much "platforming" as such in the classic sense, since you can't jump but climb ledges and travel through electricity outlets etc. to solve Puzzles. You also collect Energy from glowing objects around you by zapping them and can use it to power certain things. You have to look for "Kibblins", small Electrical creatures to bring Power back to areas of the city. There are some Mini-quests you have to solve to help the Electrical creatures, so they agree to go back where they're supposed to and reactivate the electricity. As you travel around you create Shortcuts to traverse the level faster through electrical outlets you unlock or objects you manipulate.
Moons of Darsalon: Like a shitty zany Lemmings where you have to Micromanage the Lemmings every move. Their reactions are funny tho. Metacommentary the characters make are also kinda funny. After Level4 you get to shoot and remodel terrain. After Level5 you get to place ground yourself. Then Jet pack action. Surprisingly fun.
Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition: Never played the Original this is supposed to be a Remake for (Abe's Exoddus) so can't compare. Kinda shit that the Demo starts with a Trailer showing off the plaudits of Game Churnalists. Cool character design, very Tutorial and Action/Explosion-heavy at the beginning with lots of Popup Tutorials and blue Tutorial Terminals everywhere. Feels like playing a Michael Bay movie in parts: Sprint, run and jump to the right while things explode all around you and you're being shot at. Cutscenes are alright, not so sure about some of the voice-overs. Lots of Automatic Checkpoints and Popup Achievements when you just pick up stuff telling you about Silver, Gold or Platinum something. You progress by usually running to the right, jump or double-jump at times and loot containers. You extinguish fire by throwing water bottles, start fires by throwing brew bottles at fire and can extend it that way. During certain sections you have to wait behind a (chest high) wall till the machine gunners Pause their shooting, then run out and continue to the next bit. You can use Left Trigger to Astral project ("Chant") and look around a bit, you use the same ability to open some doors and possess enemies later and make them kill each other, stun them or explode them. Second Level seems more calm than the first, you Sneak by a lot of enemies with LB or set them on fire. Not sure what exactly, but something about the 3D presentation seems a bit off. Controls could also be more intuitive. Especially some of them like switching between and throwing different bottles by holding the Y button and moving the Left Stick up and down for instance. Disarming mines is kind of frustrating, since the timing is very tight and if you miss you have to Restart from Checkpoint. I don't really like the "Saving Mudokons" mechanic, even though I managed to save all 200 in the end. The Demo ends after 2 Levels. It made me think about (re)playing the old games again though instead of this.
Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed: An Open World Human disintegration/extermination Simulator taking place in "San Francisco"/Bay City in the 60s. You play Crypto-138, the most recent clone of an alien who has an unnatural interest in human females and disintegrate KGB agents and other riff-Raff after Russia blew up the Alien mother-ship. I quite enjoy the humor and it doesn't feel low budget like some of the Indies. You can Psychokinetically ragdoll and throw around humans, extract human brains or start forced dance parties. You can glide around on the ground using an energy skateboard and get a jetpack to fly through the air very early on. You can disguise yourself as a hooman and also read their minds with a Cortex Scan. If you stay in a body for too long you become kind of... off walking around like a Zombie ragdoll with a weird droopy face, and people will react in a surprised hostile manner to you. You can fly around in your flying saucer death-raying things or collecting hoomans for biological harvest and gene blending to upgrade your abilities. There's something weird going on with the texture/terrain loading especially in Cutscenes and the AI seems a bit off/a bit Cyberpunk-ish at times. There's times when NPCs just run into traffic to get run over and once
entire lanes of cars in 3 directions built up for several blocks because some van got stuck in the middle of the road, some other times
there were unexplainable agglomerations of NPCs in a Blob or close-by etc. You'll mostly be dealing with and murdering Hippies and KGB agents in the Demo. Made me want to try the Remake of the first game first and will probably pick it up next Sale. I'm guessing the reason these seem to have at least somewhat compelling characters and are moderately funny might have something to do with them being Remakes/graphical overhauls of games developed in 2005/06 respectively. There also seems to be a big booba KGB agent sidekick chick you can also see in the title screen in the latter part of the game called
Natalya Ivanova we wouldn't find if the game was made today.
Library of Babel: Art style and feel of the game reminds me of Primordia a lot. You are playing a robot called Ludovik in a future technological society, the game is a Mix between Adventure and Stealth Platformer with mostly separate sections. You are a "Seeker" unit apparently on a mission to investigate some cult. You can run/walk/crawl and jump, he grabs on to ledges if you jump towards them. Your robotic mount has some sort of help and dialogue functions. During Stealth sections you gather a bunch of Crystals that let you respawn at close-by terminals you activate as Checkpoints if you screw up. You have to crawl and hide behind things like boxes or sacks to get past guards unseen, they glow green when you're "safe". It's kind of bullshit that they randomly turn around sometimes, usually in the least convenient moment, but the game gives you an abundance of crystals to retry and plenty of Checkpoints. There's also hidden passages with boxes and stuff in them. It's hard to tell what to think of it, the game seems intriguing, I like the art style, but the Demo is barely half an hour long, skips over the bits of exposition that would explain where you are and what you are doing there when they send you to meet the Matriarch and instead teleports you to a Stealth section, which abruptly ends in the middle.
Anyway, Platformers to the Rescue for at least providing some cool and varied experiences.