The Land of Pain

Despite some awkwardness, this is an excellent homage to the slow-paced, cosmic, and yet mundane horror of H. P. Lovecraft.

The story is short, but that's again true to Lovecraft. Still, there's quite a bit of gameplay. The world itself feels big and there are several open areas for you to explore. But this scope becomes a problem when too many puzzles require you to move back and forth in a large area.

Also, exploration is wonderful when you can do it at your own pace, but unfortunately in some places there are some dangerous things chasing you. I understand that this is done in order to add suspense, but these "enemies" are poorly executed and detract from both the gameplay and the story. I feel the game could have been better by simply removing them.

The CryEngine graphics are breathtaking in the sunny outdoors, atmospheric at night, but are poorly executed indoors. Still, an amazing accomplishment for a single developer.

There are quite a few scenes that are truly excellent, carefully planned with deft touches of mystery and suspense. However, some of them involve plain busy work with nothing much that is tied to the narrative.

The bottom line is that if you can accept the awkwardness you will be rewarded with a memorable gem. I look forward to more games from this developer!