I was sent Fort Solis as a review code. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I will not let it sway my opinions about the game. This will be my honest review.
Jack Leary is an engineer on Mars on the final days of his tour when he receives a distress signal from a nearby mining camp. What starts as a simple check-in quickly turns into the longest night of his life. There is something strange happening within the walls of Fort Solis. Can Jack survive long enough to find out what?
Fort Solis felt more like a visual novel or interactive fiction than a video game. Players have some freedom with their investigation of the base, but the experience is somewhat rail-roaded. There are some variations in the narrative based on the choices players make through the quick time events, but you’re essentially walking from checkpoint to checkpoint and collecting clues in between.
I had no issues with this style of narrative because it felt like I was watching a solid sci-fi series with no filler. The atmosphere is properly creepy, the music is fantastic, and the voice acting is phenomenal. The game may not be scary, but it does enough to keep the story engaging. Fort Solis does a fantastic job at creating a creepy isolated experience as you stumble through the darkness, piecing the mystery together. The mystery is fine, but I think I failed a bit too many quick time events to get the full story.
A lot of the narrative exists through dialogue and logs you find throughout the base. A lot of the game is tied to exploration, so keep that in mind when considering buying this title. The logs and clues were well implemented, making Fort Solis one of the few games where I went out of my way to collect as much of the story as I could because of how invested I became. I didn’t uncover everything sadly, but I was left with enough mystery for at least another playthrough.
There are multiple endings, and the endings are influenced by the choices players make throughout the game. It is easy to start passively enjoying the narrative and fail a quick time event. I recommend you stay alert if you want to avoid a bad ending. That said, the game is short enough where you can easily see other endings. If you do the bare minimum to get through the checkpoints, it should take players no more than 4 hours to clear the game. I took my time to get lost in the world because I was enjoying my time through the base. There is also a ending credit scene you should look out for.
I enjoyed Fort Solis. The game has a well-designed narrative, amazing voice actors, and a great sound track. This is a great game if you enjoy thrilling sci-fi and don’t mind interactive fiction. That said, I think $25 is a little too much for what you get. I recommend you pick it up when it goes on sale unless you can’t really can’t wait. This is a game you should at least play once for the unique experience it provides.
You can pick up Fort Solis for the PS5 ($29.99), Mac (39.99), PC via Steam and Epic Games (24.99). Steam and Epic Games currently have it on sale for $22.49 until August 29.
Apple’s The Crowded Room isn’t the psychological thriller it thinks it is
I almost didn’t finish watching this series, but I powered through for the review. The Crowded Room isn’t the worst show in Apple’s catalog, but it is boring. I’ll be honest. I didn’t have the highest hopes for this series going in. The trailer was boring, so I wasn’t surprised when the series was too. I am more disappointed by the fact that I wasted my time watching this than I am with the quality of the series. Do yourself a favor and go watch anything else.
Rya is an ambitious psychology professor who is asked to help Danny after he shoots up Rockefeller Center. Danny is a troubled kid who hears voices and needs help. Rya is the only person who understands Danny’s condition and can get him the help he needs. But with his trial moving ever closer, Rya is running out of time. Can she help Danny so that he can start healing before it’s too late? Can she convince the world that he needs help, or will he be sent to rot in prison for something that he has no control over? I feel like I have been saying this a lot lately, but this could have been a lot shorter. I believe it was meant to be shorter. This series has a lot of filler, and it took everything I had to not skip around. You can watch the first and last episodes and get the whole story, the rest of the episodes add nothing to the narrative. The Crowded Room spends so much on emotional speeches, psychology lectures, and showing the audience how diverse the cast is that it forgets to tell its story. It’s hilarious that the series is advertised as a thriller when it is missing everything that would make it one. The writing is worse than the pacing. Someone took everything they learned from their Intro to Psyc class, mixed it with some of the laziest emotional speeches, sprinkled in as many cliches they could think of, and threw it together to make this script. I can’t believe they wasted such a talented cast on something more fitting of a high school production. The Crowded Room is a slow build-up to one of the most boring and poorly written trials you will ever have to sit through, and then the series just ends abruptly. While I am happy that they didn’t sequel bait, they should at least have the decency to try to finish the story. The trial magically ends, and you get some meaningless epilogue and the empty feeling that you just wasted precious time you will never get back.
The longer I think about this series, the angrier I get about having sat through it. You can stream it on Apple TV if you have a subscription, but you have better things to do.
Silo: The fantastically suspenseful sci-fi mystery you should be watching, or at the very least reading.
Silo is a fantastic sci-fi mystery full of suspense, action, and conspiracy. If you have an Apple TV subscription or need a reason to start one, check out this series.
Earth has become a toxic and uninhabitable wasteland. The few remaining survivors live now live in an underground silo where life, for the most part, is peaceful. Everyone in the silo serves their purpose, settling into a routine that is decided for them. Most don’t questions the silo’s designs or the founders’ motives. Some get curious and ask the questions that peel at the veil of this carefully crafted façade, but they don’t last long. There is something wrong with the silo. A secret too big to keep hidden forever.
Juliet is a gifted mechanic who spends her days keeping the silo running. She does her job passionately and has never been curious about anything that isn’t mechanical. This all changes when she finds herself wrapped in the silo’s biggest conspiracy. Now Juliet finds herself searching for answers that will destabilize the peace in the silo. Will Juliet finally be the one to uncover the truth, or will she be silenced like all the rest?
Silo is a fantastic thriller with a well-crafted mystery, terrific acting, and a beautiful rustic aesthetic. Some actors aren’t great, and there is a bit of filler I would skip next time around, but the series left me wanting more. I started reading Wool, the book the series is based on, because I couldn’t wait a week for the answers. Once you binge this series in one sitting, I recommend you read the book or at least listen to it on Audible. It is a fantastic piece of science fiction. I’ll link some free copies of the audiobook below for those interested.
I enjoyed both versions almost equally. I loved the TV series because the actors did a great job portraying their characters, I enjoyed the attention to detail in the world and mannerisms, and I liked that the series felt more like a thriller. There are some suspenseful moments in the series that kept me at the edge of my seat even though I knew what was going to happen. I enjoyed the book because it felt more like a mystery. I felt like Juliet got more answers in the book. There are also details in the book that were left out that I felt were done better. I can’t tell you which version I enjoyed more, but I do recommend you dive into them both.
If you haven’t seen this series yet, it is a great time to start it. It is a fantastic mystery set in a fascinating world led by a great protagonist. My only complaint is that I’ll have to wait for season 2 for more answers, but I guess I can read the books in the mean time.
this version of the audiobook isn’t finished, but it does cover everything that happens in the series. It is also the better of the free version
This version isn’t as good, but you have both parts:
Fort Solis: A spooky sci-fi mystery coming to PS5, PC, and Mac this August.
I just watched the Fort Solis trailer, and it looks like the spooky sci-fi mystery I need in my life. A mining team on Mars has gone missing, and it is up to Jack Leary to find out what happened. Explore an abandoned mining base as sand storms rage and strange things happen around you. What happened here? To the team? Will you be next? You’ll have to play the game to find out.
Based on the trailer, the game looks creepy. The abandoned mining rig is giving me Dead Space vibes, and I didn’t have the courage to finish any of them. Admittedly, I have never finished a horror game, but maybe I’ve never played a good one. I don’t do good with horror, but I am willing to try with Fort Solis.
For the record, I don’t have an issue with horror movies or books, just horror games. Maybe it’s irrational, but something about having control of the horror freaks me out more than passively watching it happen to someone else. That said, I am working on getting a review code for this because the trailer has me interested. I will probably play with all my lights on, but I will power through. I am always down for a good mystery, and the game looks pretty good too. Let’s hope I hear back from them soon.
Fort Solis is a horror mystery sci-fi game coming to PS5, PC, and Mac on August 22nd.
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The Last Thing He Told Me: The slowest suspenseful thriller about unconditional motherly love
Movie Review: 65 (2023)
65 is a solid B movie with sufficient action, story, and cool-looking dinosaurs. It isn’t winning any awards, and it is a bit slow, but it is fine for what it is. If you are curious about watching this movie, throw it on in the background and enjoy the good bits. Adam Driver is transporting groups of people across space to make money for his sickly child. His latest mission is interrupted by an uncharted asteroid system that forces him to make an emergency crash landing on an undiscovered planet. He and a young girl are the ship’s only survivors. Now the two must brave a world full of dinosaurs as they make their way to the only remaining escape pod. Can they make it off this planet? The leads have good enough chemistry to make a movie with very little dialogue work. I do take some issue with the little girls’ problematic representation, but it wasn’t so bad that I had to turn it off. I would have preferred it if they spoke the same language, but the movie handles the language barrier well enough. This movie is dumb. The story is on the generic side, the science is too magical, and there is a fair amount of ex-Machina. There are also some slow bits you could gloss over, but the movie is fine. It’s fun to watch Adam Driver blasting away Dinosaurs, and the relationship the forms between the two leads is cute. It’s not a movie you should be rushing to, but it is an option when you need something in the background that doesn’t require your full attention. I liked it enough to watch it again, and I liked it a whole lot better than After Earth. So throw it on, skip through the slow bits, and enjoy this silly bit of alternate history.
Movie Review: Ghosted (2023)
I just watch Ghosted, but I wish I didn’t. This has to be one of the laziest and most boring action films I have seen, and I have sat through some terrible movies. This movie is so boring that Anna Del Armas slept through her whole performance. This movie is so boring that the best part is when they played My Sharona, even though the action scene it belongs to is terrible. For those few who were thinking of watching this movie, don’t. It is a huge waste of time.
A farmer meets a girl at a farmers market and falls madly in love with her after one date. She ghosts him. Instead of taking the hint and moving on, the farmer tracks her down without her knowledge to attempt a big romantic gesture. Instead of finding romance, the farmer finds himself in the middle of a covert CIA operation. It turns out that the love is life is a secret agent. Will he be able to find love between the rain of bullets and lies?
Ghosted starts off as one of the most awkward romcoms but quickly turns into an incredibly generic action movie. This movie doesn’t work. There is absolutely no chemistry between the leads, which was essential for this movie’s success. I blame the lack of chemistry and mediocre acting on the terrible writing. The writing for this movie is lazy. You can guess down to specific lines what will happen next. At least they had they lacked the nerve to sequel bait because that would have thrown me over a ledge.
As an action movie, it doesn’t work because the action is boring. I preferred the romcom bits of the plot because at least sometimes it would be funny. For this movie to work, it needed a tangible villain and real stakes, anything to make it less goofy.
The worst part of this movie was the couple. They meet after a very awkward and obnoxious fight and somehow still end up going on a date The guy, who everyone agrees is obsessive, uses a tracking device that only he knows about to track the romantic interest. The movie tries to play it like the male lead is quirky, but it is creepy. It doesn’t make sense when in the end they are in love because there is no reason for them to be.
I knew Ghosted was going to be bad when I saw how hard Apple was pushing it up to its release. They even shamelessly collected name-brand actors for seconds of cameos to trick people into watching this garbage. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen all the good parts. It even shows you bits of the climax. I avoided using names in this review because the characters are so generic that the names don’t matter. You can watch this movie on Apple TV, but I wouldn’t waste my time. Go watch Killers instead. That movie does this plot a lot better.
Suffer the Night
Suffer the Night just came out on PC, and it might be worth looking into if you are a fan of retro horror. Stacey plans on a quiet night of gaming, alone in her secluded cabin one dark and stormy night. But her quiet night turns into a night of nightmares and survival. Stacey must now beat her game and survive the horrors that manifest from it. Will Stacey survive the night, or is this Game Over?
Suffer the Night combines a text-based dungeon crawler with first-person survival horror. As Stacey, you must play through the retro dungeon crawler to progress through the story and survive rounds of traps and monsters in between. The text-based game will help players relieve a different era of gaming, while the first-person gameplay will give them anxiety. The trailer shows terrifying mayhem with fast-paced gameplay.
I like the game within a game motif for Suffer the Night. The meta-narrative, when done correctly, creates a dynamic where the game is given its depth by how well the two genres mesh. It isn’t a new concept, but it is one that I’d love to explore. I enjoy text-based games, and if done correctly, might prove harder than the fps that will exist outside it. I don’t do well in horror games, but I will try to get a review copy.
You can pick up your copy of Suffer the Night for PC through Steam, GOG, and itch.io. You can buy the game for $12.49, but it is currently on sale for $9.99 till April 24. There is also a demo available if you aren’t ready to commit.
To stay up to date on the news for this game, make sure you join the official Discord or follow the socials: Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Series Review: Swarm (2023)
Amazon’s Swarm is a creepy and strange series that you should be making time for. The series has an amazing cast that gives terrifying performances, a solid story, and beautiful cinematography. At the very least, add this series to your watch list.
After Marissa’s suicide, Dre finds it impossible to adjust to a life without her sister. Dre’s only comfort now is listening to her favorite RnB singer, Ni’Jah. But Dre’s love for Ni’Jah is dangerously obsessive, and this obsession makes Dre violent. The series will deal with the extent of Dre’s toxic fandom as she turns against anyone who offends Ni’Jah. Swarm is violent and full of sex, drugs, and nudity. Viewer discursion is advised.
I will keep my review vague because I don’t want to spoil the experience. This incredibly creepy and captivating series never ceased to amaze me. It is a bit slow and artsy, but it works. The storytelling in this series is amazing. The foreshadowing, symbolism, and fashion all work together to elevate the effectiveness of its narrative. I loved the attention to detail as I picked up on the subtle clues. I even went back to pick them up the ones I missed. Swarm has a well-crafted mystery if you are paying attention. I will be rewatching it to see how much of them I have missed.
This series would be nothing without its lead, Dominique Fishback. Fishback as Dre is the best thing about this series. The way she plays Dre remains unrivaled in the genre. You need to watch this series just to appreciate her performance. The rest of the cast is just as great and plays off of Fishback’s terrifying energy beautifully.
This series does a fantastic job of dealing with obsession and addiction. The way Dre and other characters let their lives be controlled by their obsessions is what makes this series truly terrifying. It is a reality that does exist for people, and this series does a great job depicting the nightmare.
If you haven’t seen this series, at the very least add it to your watch list. It is creepy, beautiful, and has a great story. You can stream Swarm on Amazon if you have a subscription.
Excellence in Design: The Case of the Golden Idol
This year’s winner of the IGF’s award for Excellence in Design went to the quirky mystery game, The Case of the Golden Idol. Take the role of the detective as you gather clues, pick your suspects, determine motives, and solve the mystery of twelve gruesome murders. The game has a unique art style that grows on you the more you play. The music is soothing, and its unique gameplay can be relaxing if you like solving mysteries. I felt overwhelmed by the amount of freedom I was given to solve the mystery, but I can see myself obsessing over this title if I had more time to explore it at my own pace.
If you love mysteries, this is a great one to look into. You can get your copy on Steam or GOG for $17.99. I suggest you at least try the demo and keep an open mind. I didn’t get enough time with this title to decide if I like it, but I will be adding The Case of the Golden Idol to the list of games I need to try. I will let you know how it goes if I can ever find the time.