Nightmares from the Deep 3: Davy Jones

Now this really is the last Artifex Mundi game I will play for a while as there are currently no more remaining on the marketplace. I suspect there will be another few released as soon as this is published though.

Artifex Mundi have recently come under fire from the gaming community for upping the prices of their games. They have done this retrospectively too which is unusual, but again highlights why buying when the price is right is a good idea. There were a load of comments on a forum I was reading essentially saying how people weren’t going to buy their games and how their games are not worth the price hike. To put this into perspective, the UK prices when up from £8.99 to £11.99 – an increase of £3. That is about two loaves of bread for something that you keep for ever. This has been dressed up by describing it in terms of percentages. Saying there has been an increase of 33% seems extortionate – but if you increase the price from £1 to £2 that’s a 100% increase… but still not expensive.

What I’m trying to say is, I don’t understand the ire of the public on this. If you are a gamer you are doing something you don’t need to do to survive. If you don’t like the price of a game, don’t buy it. But at least have the sense to identify that Artifex Mundi are a business and need to make money to continue making games. On the flip side, if they didn’t raise the prices, people would be crying their eyes out that Artifex Mundi went out of business and no longer make any games. Also, the amount people saying, ‘I’ll just wait for a sale’ aren’t really supporting the gaming industry. If everyone got everything for free, there wouldn’t be a gaming industry to start with – then you’d have to find something else to complain about.

Anyway, on to the actual game review now I’ve got the padding out of the way. Davy Jones puts you back in the pants of Mrs Black, Artifex Mundi’s most notorious protagonist. After trying to deliver a presentation on Davy Jones, Davy Jones takes exception to this, smashes a hole in the museum and kidnaps Mrs Black and her daughter. He is going to make Mrs Black walk the plank when the daughter, the smartest character in gaming history, asks Captain Jones not to kill her and says she will do anything to save her mother. She signs some kind of deal thing and Mrs Black gets thrown in the ocean anyway. Davy Jones didn’t kill her, he tried to let the sea do it instead. Ha. Ha… Ha. ‘I pushed you into the shark tank but it was the shark that killed you, not me.’ Such tosh logic… but it’s typical pirate logic, I suppose.

Anyway, Mrs Black doesn’t die as Davy Jones knocks a rowing boat in the water, initially to prevent you from escaping, and Mrs Black lives to solve puzzles and hidden picture scenes to save her dumbass daughter from the even dumber Davy Jones and break the curse once and for all.

The gameplay is the same as we’ve already seen from these titles so I’ll talk about the story some more. The daughter is a real dick throughout. Stupid at the beginning and moronic later on. There is a point in the story, even though she is effectively Davy Jones’ prisoner, she acts like she is bored and just wants to go home. I mean, really? I know there is no time constraints on the life or death situations but my god, at least act like your life is in peril.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 30 Achievements

Outside of the main body of the standard Artifex Mundi style achievements, there are collectibles to be had and lots of them. You have to collect 10 pirate cards, 12 seahorses and 24 puzzle pieces. Some of these are quite hard to see so you do have to keep an eye out but unlike other games, you can revisit all the way back to where the first collectible is right up to completing the game. In addition, you also have to interact with 16 different animals on the island. This one is bit tricky as you don’t get a counter for it (you do with the others) and you can miss interactions without even knowing it as some things count and others do not. It’s quite annoying.

The last one I unlocked was for completing games of mah-jong which is the additional game in this title. However, Artifex Mundi seem to have taken their achievement lists seriously and they only require you to play three games instead of all of them. That said, what was also annoying is that you don’t have to play the hidden picture scenes in the bonus adventure for any achievements but the games of mah-jong played in the bonus adventure don’t count towards this achievement. Why?? If they had counted it wouldn’t even require a small partial second playthough – made more frustrating by the fact that there are no hidden picture scenes in the opening 20 minutes of the original adventure!

Downloadable Content – N/A

Davy Jones is an enjoyable Artifex Mundi game and achievements wise, is much improved from earlier Xbox One ports. I will continue to buy their games as long as they remain of the same quality and offer the same style of puzzles. All of the Artifex Mundi games released to date have a total Gamerscore available of 14,000 points – quite the haul for some puzzling fun.

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game

Story 4/10

The point is that it’s Pirates of the Caribbean... in LEGO. There have been several instalments in the LEGO series, including Star Wars, Batman, Indiana Jones and now we get to play as our favourite Pirates of the Caribbean characters.

The premise is that it follows the story of the films but does so in LEGO form which is great. However it differs from the story of the actual movies as the LEGO, and probably the age certificate, mean that the scenes can’t play out as they do in the movies. They are much less gruesome with no LEGO blood, however there are several LEGO decapitations which is always good for a laugh.

Plus the main problem with basing a game on a film is that everyone already knows the outcome so ‘finding out what happens’ isn’t a reason to get to the end.

Picture 7/10

It would be unfair to mark the game down for picture as the whole thing is LEGO. There are areas that could be improved though. Sometime the background and interactive objects get in each other’s way and sometimes you can’t work out if you can go through a gap to the left or right of the screen because you can’t see it.

Sound 8/10

For any movie based game (I now realise two out of three o my reviews are movie based...) Having the original music is a big win for me. So it gets a thumbs up. However, after a while it started to grate on me which, if you are looking for a direct comparison, means that the Star Wars music is far more epic that Pirates.

Gameplay 7/10

LEGO games, at the heart, are just simple fun for all the family. I bought the game for three reasons:

1. It’s a game to play with the kids.

2. Easy Achievements.

3. I was a tad hungover and my friend ‘insisted’ we pay a visit to Game.

The gameplay is relatively straightforward and is user friendly for kids and adults alike. The kids can play through the main story easily enough with minimal supervision and for the adults (bigger kids) there is the extra challenge of reaching 100%, which requires some out of the box thinking.

However reaching 100% can be a massive frustration and not because of difficulty. NPCs can go fuck themselves in this game, especially when they are required to help you progress through the levels. There are several instances where you need both characters, you and the NPC, to flip double switches.

Certain characters have different skills which allow you to progress. A good example is that Captain Jack Sparrow can use rope to ascend to higher levels. In free play mode where you can change to any character at a whim, so I can switch to Jack and use a rope to ascend to a different level. However,  the NPC will not do this and will wait at the beginning of the section while you go on ahead, meaning that you then have to switch to the NPC and navigate them through the level for a second time.

This is problematic enough but is made worse when you make the switch back to the beginning, the fucktarded NPC you leave where you want to get to will start backtracking to your current location. Which means that level navigating is totally fucking stupid when trying to collect all minikits and compass items.

I also experienced a few crashes and a lot of lag in the hub once I had unlocked all the other characters but I think this could be a problem with my disc more than the game itself.

Oh, and then there is the issue of Blackbeard. Blackbeard appears in a set location in the hub for unlocking and he is required to get to some of the optional areas. He doesn’t always appear there which means I had to wait until the game decided to place him there before I could proceed with my minikit collecting. On top of this, when he did appear, I didn’t have enough coins to buy him so I had to do it again.

Achievements – 1,000 points - 40 Achievements

In terms of achievements the game ticks all the right boxes; No online, no secrets and all can be obtained through player skill as opposed to luck. Granted, they aren’t that tricky and because the in game extras don’t disable achievements (in fact, there is even an achievement for having them all active at the same time) the ones that would be normally very time consuming (Get 88,888,888 coins) can be done relatively quickly.

Downloadable Content – Not Applicable

Summary

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean is a great family game. It probably isn’t challenging enough for serious gamers and can be repetitive for those who want to think about what they’re doing, but it was great for me to play when I was ill and it’s also a straight forward 1,000 points.