Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Whispering Willows

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  1 Response »  Tagged with:
Oct 212019
 

Over the weekend, I played the side-scrolling horror adventure game Whispering Willows.

Whispering Willows puts you in the shoes of Elena Elkhorn, a girl who heads to the mysterious Willows Mansion after her father goes missing there.

She soon learns she is descended from a shaman who once lived in the area and has the ability to enter the spirit realm. This ability is a core part of the gameplay, because as you explore the mansion and its grounds, you’ll need to frequently leave your body behind to solve puzzles in areas you can’t reach.

Entering spirit form also gives you the ability to talk to ghosts, which sometimes just provides a bit more dialogue but often plays a role in the puzzles you must solve.

Numerous notes left behind by various characters flesh out the story of what happened in the mansion, and it really is a somber story. Once again, this is a horror story that ends up feeling more sad and haunting than anything else. Overall, I enjoyed it, although the final sequence feels a bit rushed.

Click for Whispering Willows spoilers
It felt to me like Wortham gave up a bit too quickly. I liked the idea of showing him how past events would have gone if he hadn’t reacted the way he did, but I thought some of those moments needed more weight, especially when he learned that Flying Hawk really would have helped him talk to his wife again.

He’d been built up throughout the story as the driving force behind all the terrible events there, so really having him see the consequences of his actions would have made the climax feel stronger.

Meanwhile, the gameplay is pretty solid. It’s simple and the puzzles are fairly easy, but it has that nice gameplay loop I like of getting keys to unlock doors and gradually being able to explore areas that were blocked off before. The final chapter had some frustrating parts, but not enough to damage my impression of the game.

I’m not sure I’d necessarily call Whispering Willows a horror game, but it’s certainly a spooky one that has its share of creepy moments.

So if you want a spooky game about ghosts, a haunted mansion, and the tragic events that occurred there, it’s worth giving Whispering Willows a try.

Telltale Games is Coming Back (Sort Of)

 Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with:
Aug 282019
 

Last year, Telltale Games shut down and all of its upcoming games except for the final season of The Walking Dead were cancelled, but now it’s coming back!

Sort of.

LCG Entertainment announced that it has bought Telltale’s assets and IPs and will operate as Telltale Games to release the studio’s back catalog and develop new games.

It’s a bit strange since the original Telltale Games is gone. This is essentially a new developer using the same name. However, their press release says they’ll be hiring or contracting “key talent from the original company.”

In an interview with GameDaily, they went into more detail about how they intend to revive the brand and avoid the original company’s mistakes by not taking on too much at once. It sounds like their focus early on will be to take things slowly enough to get Telltale back on its feet. They also plan to both use the Telltale Tool and transition to new technology.

Personally, I hope this means The Wolf Among Us 2 has a chance to come out after all. The Wolf Among Us is one of the properties they’ve acquired, and it’s the sequel I was looking forward to the most.

Will it feel the same with a new Telltale Games at the helm? I don’t know. But at least now there’s hope that it could still be developed!

How do you feel about the revival of this new Telltale Games? What announcements are you hoping to see? Share your thoughts in the comments.

J.U.L.I.A.: Among the Stars Starts Strong, Ends Okay

 Reviews, Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with:
Jul 222019
 

Saturday was the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, and I decided I wanted to play a space game to celebrate.

I ended up picking J.U.L.I.A.: Among the Stars, a point-and-click adventure game following Rachel, the sole survivor of an expedition to a distant solar system, as she works with the ship’s AI Julia to piece together the mysteries of the solar system and what went wrong.

Adventure games can be hit or miss for me, but right away I liked the gameplay style of J.U.L.I.A. It has a button for you to see everything you can interact with, and the first part of the game focused on exploring to find clues about what happened and how to proceed, such as learning passwords that give you access to datapads used by members of the team.

The main character does not personally visit the planets, but instead sends down a recon robot. Upgrading the robot is another key part of progression, with some challenging (but satisfying) blueprint puzzles required to do so.

After you investigate the first area, it introduces another cool mechanic: an optional feature where you arrange events as they happened, to piece together the mysteries you uncovered. It was a nice way to lay everything out in a linear fashion when you initially learn about it through scattered clues.

Then the solar system opens up and you can visit other planets, so I was pretty excited to see how it would proceed.

Unfortunately, J.U.L.I.A. lost something in the later parts of the game for me. It became a bit less investigation-focused, involved more puzzles that sometimes weren’t explained well, and introduced elements that took away from its initial grounded feeling.

Click for J.U.L.I.A. spoilers
An advanced alien race guiding life in the universe and the museum based on Rachel’s memories… I feel like this entire section could have been removed. Not only does it change the tone of the story, but it also mainly existed to point Rachel toward the way to purify the lake. Having her find the hidden planet (or find answers another way) more natural would have fit the story better, in my opinion.

The game’s big twist also felt fairly obvious, although it made sense and was handled well enough. The ending, however, felt a little lacking to me too.

Nevertheless, there were parts of J.U.L.I.A. that I thoroughly enjoyed, especially in the beginning, and it was certainly a good pick for a space theme. Have you played J.U.L.I.A.: Among the Stars?

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