Before Your Eyes Review – An Emotional, Eye-Opening Experience

Publisher: Skybound

Developer: GoodbyeWorld Games

Reviewed on: PC

Blinking for the first time in Before Your Eyes is a genuinely magical moment. I don’t mean hitting a button to close your virtual eyes. Through the power of a webcam, Before Your Eyes tracks when you blink which allows you to progress through a wonderful narrative adventure title from GoodbyeWorld Games. It may seem like a novel gimmick on the surface, but the mechanic is used so inventively that it meaningfully enhances the already powerful storytelling that fans of narrative adventure titles would be mistaken to write it off as a shallow trick.

Players take on the role of Benjamin Brynn, a lost soul who has already passed on. At the beginning of the game, you encounter a canine ferryman who forces you to relive the events of Ben’s life, beginning at birth. This is all to impress a being called the Gatekeeper who wants an honest assessment of the kind of person Ben was.  

By blinking when prompted, you’ll jump days, weeks, and sometimes years forward in Ben’s life. I’m impressed by how the game accurately recognizes eye-tracking. I never had an issue where a blink didn’t register or my camera needed recalibration. I also never felt disoriented or uncomfortable playing using eye tracking, but those factors will vary by person. On that note, it’s good that there’s an option to play the entire game using traditional mouse clicks, but I think you’d be doing yourself a major disservice in doing so.

Having played Before Your Eyes twice, once using blinks and the other using the mouse, I think the story loses a fair bit of its magic when playing with solely traditional control inputs. Closing your eyes, then opening them to a brand-new scene creates the awesome sensation that you’re reliving a life through an old-school View-Master toy. Ben’s memories are fleeting, and the mechanic sells that point perfectly. Yes, I was occasionally disappointed after I blinked involuntarily and advanced the story sooner than I would have liked. However, I didn’t mind it for long because I found that doing so lends to the game’s dreamlike quality and the sensation that even cherished memories eventually fade even – when we hope that they won’t.  

Some of my favorite moments involve closing my eyes to better eavesdrop on hushed conversations or so my childhood bestie could leave a heartfelt note embarrassment-free. It's also just more fun to "look and blink" instead of pointing and clicking on objects. Even while playing with your eyes, you still use a mouse for other actions like connecting stars in the night sky to write a cosmic message or to keep in rhythm with a piano tempo. These interactions are largely basic but are still delightful.  

No matter how you play, Before Your Eyes’ story is a heartfelt tale that me close to tears at several points. Despite its pleasantly whimsical veneer, the narrative’s themes of depression and existentialism hit hard, as does understanding life’s meaning from the perspective of a person who, despite having a great family and born with prodigious gifts, struggles to find personal fulfillment. The writing is earnest and thoughtful, and the story takes some unexpected turns culminating in a bittersweet final message that lands harder than I was prepared for (in a good way). 

A great story needs good characters, and Before Your Eyes has that in spades. Ben’s parents, a caring yet demanding mother and a lovably goofy father, are sweethearts. The same goes for Chloe, your mischievous neighbor who comes off as a genuinely endearing kid you can’t help but want to impress and hang out with. I was surprised by how attached I became to the cast in such a short time, but the superb performances and well-written dialogue do their job and ingratiated me to the characters.   

Throughout the story you’ll make some choices, but I was disappointed in how little they impact the overall narrative. Don’t stress too much over whether to sneak out with your friend or get much-needed sleep for your big piano recital; this is one of those games where you’re merely choosing what colors to paint the road as opposed to creating whole new paths. Since the game only takes about an hour or so to get through, it’s worth replaying just to see a few of those scenes, but I wish my decisions had more weight given the large number of choices presented.

Before Your Eyes’ story left me reeling by the end, and it’s a memorable journey worth going out of your way to play. You rarely get a lot of first-of-a-kind experiences in games anymore, and Before Your Eyes largely nails the execution of its primary hook. It’s a concept I’d love to see further explored in a follow-up, and I couldn’t be happier that something like this exists.

Score: 8.5

Summary: Before Your Eyes puts its unique blinking mechanic to great use, offering a novel and fun method of interacting with this memorable, bittersweet tale.

Concept: Relive the memories of a troubled child prodigy by using your actual eyes to blink forward in time

Graphics: The visuals trade realism for colorful stylization, and it’s fitting for the dream-like premise

Sound: The voice performances are excellent, and made me grow attached to the small cast faster than expected

Playability: Provided your webcam works, the blinking mechanic works great and is used ingeniously during certain moments. Playing with a mouse works fine but doesn’t capture the same magic

Entertainment: Before Your Eyes is much more than a neat gimmick. It offers a wonderful method of interacting with a touching and impactful story that’ll stick with you long after the credits roll

Replay: Moderately High

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Oddworld: Soulstorm Review – A Bad Batch Of Brew

Publisher: Oddworld Inhabitants

Developer: Oddworld Inhabitants

Release: 2020

Rating: Teen

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5

Also on: PlayStation 4, PC

Playing Oddworld: Soulstorm is as arduous as Abe’s quest to liberate his Mudoken brethren from slavery. Each step is a supreme test of patience as you methodically guide your followers through challenging hazards, sweating over the fact that one slip-up could unravel all your effort. If you enjoy putting up with that old-school challenge, you might love this journey. However, if you’re a newcomer or a fan that believes this style of platformer hasn’t aged very well, turn back now. Soulstorm doesn’t do enough to modernize the series’ tedious gameplay, and a litany of severe technical hiccups spoil Abe’s attempted comeback. 

A reimagining of Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, Soulstorm’s gameplay remains largely the same: you recruit and guide followers through 2D platforming stages littered with dangers. As charming as the classic Oddworld games are, they can be frustratingly difficult and that hasn’t changed much in Soulstorm. Most Slig enemies and other hazards mow Abe down instantly, and I was infuriated by how little wiggle room I had to correct course when things went sideways. Abe drops so fast that it makes the health meter seem like a cruel tease. While playing Soulstorm, I often felt like I was walking on eggshells because of that high price of failure, retracing every step, re-recruiting every Mudokon, and carefully guiding them through a gauntlet of foes is soul-crushing when it all falls apart in seconds. Dying to unexpected perils, like being suddenly gunned down by off-screen enemies, feels cheap and happens way too often.

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A crafting system serves as Soulstorm’s biggest addition, but it doesn’t feel necessary. You must repeatedly gather the same ingredients every time you die (by searching lockers, trash cans, and fallen foes), which wore me down in a hurry after repeatedly replaying certain sections. The crafted tools themselves, like proximity mines, smoke screens, even a flamethrower, do add a welcomed element of flexibility and improvisation to gameplay. Dropping smoke screens to create hiding spots anywhere is nice, but I wished I didn’t have to make these items myself and grew tired of digging around the same spots over and over.  

Even when Soulstorm’s difficulty eases up, the gameplay is bland. The action feels largely the same from previous games in the series, and that formula doesn’t evolve significantly beyond the first few hours. Even the more interesting sequences, like facing down a giant mech aboard a speeding train, are far too punishing to be fun. I’m glad that Abe controls better now (he even has a double jump), but the controls still have a mushy unresponsiveness that makes entertaining actions, like possessing Sligs, feel like a hassle. The controls also lead to additional deaths because Abe doesn’t act as swiftly as you need him to, especially during the ill-fitting, overly demanding combat arenas that pit you against waves of baddies while you try to protect fleeing Mudokens.

Soulstorm would be a tough recommendation for anyone outside of diehard fans if it performed flawlessly, but I encountered several progress-sabotaging bugs (even after installing the big day-one patch) that should scare off even those players. When I died, Mudokens sometimes failed to respawn alongside me even though my tally indicated they were still alive and under my command. That meant I lost out on turning in followers that I’d spent ages trying to safely liberate, which negatively affected my overall quarma – a vital metric in determining which of the four endings you get. 

Abe occasionally gets stuck in environmental geometry, forcing a restart. At one point, I fell into an infinite loop. One escape portal permanently vanished once I reached it, forcing me to abandon followers. A gun in a late-game turret sequence failed to shoot despite working fine in previous segments. After multiple restarts, I randomly discovered that clicking the right stick “fixed” the weapon for some reason, allowing it to fire. I spent over an hour trying to lead a large group of followers through a particularly challenging area, but once I opened the exit door an invisible wall prevented me from moving forward. I was forced to restart this entire, lengthy sequence twice before the exit worked properly. Soulstorm’s gameplay pushed my patience to its limits, but these bugs sent me over the edge and made me nervous every time I started a new level. “What on Earth is going to screw me over this time?” I regularly asked myself.

Soulstorm’s faults are a shame because its narrative and presentation brought a smile to my face. Abe and his pals are goofy, delightful underdogs I couldn’t help but root for. The enjoyable story is packed with heart, and the cutscenes look great. I wanted to welcome Abe into a new generation of gaming with open arms, but Soulstorm fails to make a case for why its brand of cinematic platforming works today. In fact, Soulstorm only reaffirmed that Abe’s past adventures are best viewed with rose-colored glasses.

Score: 5

Summary: Soulstorm retains the series' signature charm, but it's not enough to forgive its tedious and dated design as well its litany of swear-inducing technical issues.

Concept: Help Abe liberate his fellow Mudokons from Glukkon tyranny while unraveling the truth behind his own destiny

Graphics: The CG cutscenes look great, and I love seeing the camera pan out while dozens of Mudokons scurry in the background

Sound: This voice-acting remains charming and humorous, but the soundtrack is unremarkable

Playability: The platforming feels much better when compared to New ‘n’ Tasty, but these controls are still stiff and clunky and can cost you your life against the quick-drawing enemies

Entertainment: Soulstorm has oodles of charm, but tedious design and annoying bugs make an experience that only the most hardcore and forgiving Oddworld fans might enjoy

Replay: Moderately Low

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Pac-Man 99 Review – A Great Game To Play While Doing Something Else

Publisher: Bandai Namco

Rating: Everyone

Reviewed on: Switch

I have played 128 games of Pac-Man 99, but I'm only half certain I know what I'm doing. Lacking any kind of tutorial, Pac-Man 99 leaves players to learn and understand its systems for themselves – making for a frustrating introduction to a visually busy game. However, once I cleared that initial hurdle, I found myself reaching for Pac-Man 99 time and time again – if only because of how unobtrusive it is. 

Taking cues from Super Mario Bros. 35 and Tetris 99, Pac-Man 99 is a modern twist on the Pac-Man action you've known for four decades: go around a maze picking up small pellets and larger power pellets while avoiding the five ghosts on-screen that can end your run. The twist here, however, is now you're pitted against 98 other online players. Pac-Man 99 is, essentially, a battle royale experience where you compete against the group to be the last player standing. The bulk of the gameplay features Pac-Man’s classic maze-running action, but pick-ups on the left and right side of the maze allow you to gobble ghosts and send attacks at other players, such as ghost Pac-Men that can either slowdown or end a player’s run. By and large, I found this twist on the familiar formula to be a fun challenge – it's satisfying to figure out when to save your attacks before unleashing them on the opposition.

However, getting to the point where you actually understand how to play Pac-Man 99 is a whole other story. The game lacks any kind of tutorial, which leaves it up to players to figure out how to actually play the game. If you're willing to bang your head against the first dozen matches or so (a frustrating experience, to say the least), you eventually get the hang of it. But in the early hours, there's so much happening on-screen that Pac-Man 99 seems inscrutable. Early in my playtime, the complete lack of tutorials turned me off.

While I've since learned how to enjoy Pac-Man 99, many of its systems remain bewildering. Using the Nintendo Switch's face buttons and right analog stick, you can choose ways to attack other players, with options labeled Stronger, Random, Speed, Knockout, and so on. However, I never fully understood the clear difference between some of those attacks. Pressing and moving the buttons doesn't offer detailed visual feedback, and it’s unclear how my attacks impacted other players.

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Despite this, I still enjoyed my time with Pac-Man 99. While many of the systems are opaque, through enough trial-and-error, I got good enough to frequently place in the top 25. Unlike many other battle royales, matches of Pac-Man 99 are relatively quick and reloading into a new match is painless, which I also appreciated. On top of the battle royale mode, Pac-Man 99 also has a Score Attack, CPU Battle, and Time Attack single player modes, though by and large I found these unremarkable and not nearly as fun as the base mode. It's also worth pointing out all single player game modes are locked behind a $15 paywall, as is a lot of the cosmetic content, but the battle royale mode is free. If you're itching for more Pac-Man, it's certainly there, but as far as I'm concerned the best this game has to offer is the free mode. 

Pac-Man 99 is not a particularly difficult game, but it is engaging, and I found myself wanting to play more and more. However, the electronic music that plays over the menu and during matches is repetitive and annoying (there are maybe two or three songs in the whole thing), so Pac-Man 99 has become my go-to podcast game. Which, if you ask me, is an underrated genre. The other night I sat down and listened to the new episode of Today, Explained by Vox while playing – I recommend it, it's a good one. 

To enjoy Pac-Man 99, I had to accept the frustrations that came with learning its systems. While it does an embarrassingly poor job of explaining the hows-and-whys of its mechanics, once you figure them out on your own, it's a good way to fill lulls in your day. Pac-Man 99 has become my go-to when I want to do something else, and I can't think of much higher praise for a game of this caliber. It fills a niche in my life where I can stay occupied with something fun without the need to devote all of my increasingly limited attention to it.

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Score: 7.5

Summary: A lack of any kind of tutorial is frustrating at first, but once you get the hang of the action, Pac-Man 99 is a fun way to fill lulls in your day

Concept: Battle 98 other players in competitive Pac-Man, using attacks and power-ups to gain the upper hand

Graphics: There’s a lot going on on-screen at any given time, from the standard Pac-Man fare, to new enemies and pick-ups. Visually, it’s a lot to take in, but eventually you start to understand it slightly better

Sound: The repetitive electronic music quickly gets old. I played the game on mute almost exclusively

Playability: Pac-Man 99 plays like Pac-Man, but the added challenges create rewarding and tense moments

Entertainment: A lack of any kind of tutorial is frustrating at first, but once you get the hang of the action, it's a fun way to fill lulls in your day

Replay: Moderately High

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