Well... I played Paradigm Shift last night. I really, really wish I didn't (there are spoilers below, I guess).
Scary rating: 2/10
Adventure-y point-&-click rating: 1/10
Story rating: 1/10
Graphics rating: 2/10
PC optimization rating: 2/10
The game is just awful on every level. I turn the game on and it's in windowed mode, and it's a very small window. Okay, I'll make it fullscreen... oh wait, there are no options for the game whatsoever. Fine, I'll play the game in a tiny window (already ruining the "scary" vibe). I watch the intro, and the story is just awful. The narrator explains how a "chemical plant" was supposed to make everyone in the city's dreams come true. Jobs, money, progress, etc. Apparently everyone ignored the fact that the chemicals were evil and would turn everyone into zombies, so "greed" was their undoing. He then explains that there was a "chemical leak" and that the chemical spread like 50 miles (I think that was the number) out in every direction in a very short period of time. Somehow I think that's impossible, but okay, fine.
So I jump into the game and I'm shown a letter from you to your lover, and how you'll meet her at "the gas station a few miles out of town", wait for x amount of days, and then move on (sorry, I don't love you THAT much). Now the game starts, and the visuals are awful. Here's the thing, they're hand drawn and would look fine... but EVERY screen has this horrible, OMGGRUNGYSCRATCHES filter over it, so everything is distorted and looks like shit. Perhaps the drawing doesn't look very good without a severe filter over it, but yeah, it looks terrible.
So as far as actually playing the game, I start clicking on stuff. I grab a shotgun that's leaning up against the wall (never once found a situation to use it), and then the second thing I click (a picture hanging on the wall) has a typo in the description, which says something like "A crappy painting I bought for $5 dollar." Alright, moving on, I go into the bedroom and find a screwdriver (once again, found nothing to use it on), and I also find a flask. I click on the flask and the description is something like "Oh yeah, this is what the stranger said." What? What stranger? There's some saying engraved on the flask, so the "stranger" said that? Okay, this game is already feeling horribly foreign.
The rest of my experience was just mucking about, clicking on everything to see if anything happened, finding random doors that I couldn't open, tons of items that I couldn't pick up, etc. I came across a car in a parking lot, which said "I can barely see through the window.", so here I am trying all my items (I have a fire axe, but naturally I can't break the window), and while I'm doing this, the screen changes (there is no animation in this game, just screen changes) to a zombie pressed up against the inside of the window, a bunch of blood splats appear on my screen, and I'm told that I died. Really? A zombie killed me from the inside of a car with all the windows closed. Cool.
And yes, if you die in this game, you start all over again. Another death happened when I went somewhere, and was given a countdown saying "They're coming!". I couldn't leave the way I came for no reason, and in front of me was a bunch of furniture stacked against a door. I clicked some stuff, nothing really happened, so I clicked to use my shotgun, the countdown ran out, and I was told I died again (this time with the picture of a zombie face getting its mouth and eyes warped in and out like a bad Photoshop effect).
Okay, let's try this again! On my third attempt, I make it to an army base. All of the guns I find are "out of ammo", so I find a radio and click it (to be rescued?). Nope, as soon as I click it, it says "Strike coordinates received, commencing air strike in 15 minutes!" and tells me I need to evacuate the area ASAP or I'll get blown up. Dicks. While the edges of the screen glow red (because that's what happens when an air strike is en route), I go as far away from where I was as possible, back to my house. 2 or so minutes later, I'm shown a game over screen showing a mushroom cloud explosion on the entire city. Thanks guys.
The game is just dumb. It's clearly a cheesy little game that was meant to be played mainly on iOS (even the launch screen says "touch to continue"). It has no redeeming factors. I'm sad I spent 75 cents on it, honestly, and that's pretty pathetic.
tl;dr DON'T BUY PARADIGM SHIFT, IT SUCKS.
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ing laughable.
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