Serena, по сути, не игра - это коротенькая интерактивная история. Здесь нет ни паззлов, ни выбора реплик - геймплейно это такая кастрированная поинт-энд-клик адвенчура с неспешным кликаньем на все предметы по многу раз. Единственное что от вас требуется - быть достаточно внимательным, чтобы собрать отдельные кусочки мазайки в единую картину.
Однако, что касается сюжета, тут нет никаких нареканий. История вышла вполне интересной и атмосферной, а неожиданная концовка лишь добавляет проекту шарма. Благодаря короткой продолжительности (прохождение займет у вас около получаса) однообразный игровой процесс не успевает надоесть, а бесплатность и низкие требования позволяют порекомендовать ее к прохождению любому владельцу ПК.
Such mixed feelings about this game. Teasing out the story is interesting and engaging, and the voice acting and visuals are solid, but sometimes the "click on all the things until dialog is exhausted, then click on all the things again" gameplay sometimes felt like a bit of a drag. And I was caught by the utter lack of a menu or saving system: I stupidly hit the escape key and got dumped out of the game, losing 63 minutes of progress (I was very close to the end, too). Irritating. Plus I found out from LP's that it's possible to trigger the ending without having experienced the entire story: disapprove. So, conditional recommend?
Serena é um jogo com um conceito muito básico, és um homem que esta numa cabana numa floresta e não te lembras da Serena, a tua mulher.
Tropecei neste jogo por estar à procura de algo gratuito para jogar na steam e decidi experimentar, nunca tinha ouvido falar, não sabia do que se tratava, fiz download e joguei. É um jogo pequeno que demorei cerca de uma hora a terminar, onde andamos por uma pequena cabana de madeira à procura de pistas para nos relembrarmos de Serena.
Visualmente não é nada do outro mundo, é tudo muito estático e bonito com umas partículas a flutuar no ar e basicamente a única coisa que se move é o relógio, mas mesmo assim consegue criar um ambiente intimo e reservado para contar a sua historia, que é narrada cada vez que interagimos com um objecto sempre dando mais detalhes sobre o que se passou e quem era a Serena.
É uma historia que muda de direcção algumas vezes durante a nossa estadia na cabana e que acaba de uma forma inesperada.
Apesar de no principio andar perdido numa cabana com duas divisões e sem saber o que fazer, depois de começar a interagir com os objectos e a historia se começar a desenrolar não consegui resistir de jogar até ao fim. Aconselho a quem tenha uma horinha livre a ir passa-la para esta cabana e descobrir o que se passou com Serena.
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Extremely modern and pretentious. It borders on ****. Even the genre on Metacritic begs my loathing "Modern". Yeah, alright.
I'm the first to step up and say that video games need to start breaching more serious territory if they wish to be considered "art", but the main point of the medium should not be forgotten: to be a game. This game follows a trend of "artsy fartsy" games on Steam that, frankly, would only entice the imagination of the clueless.
The game is hardly a game at all, and what of its architecture that -IS- a game is horribly boring and dull.
You cannot sacrifice your narrative for gameplay, a faux pas Blizzard constantly makes, but likewise, you cannot sacrifice your gameplay for narrative, especially when the narrative isn't a very good one. The voice acting of the main character is sometimes painfully awkward and feels artificial, like the actor is not really identifying with his scene.
In the end the game tries way too hard and fails. The storytelling is boring, the graphics are offensively ugly, and the controls are pretty poor for a release on M/Kb in 2014.
What potential the story could have had, and what level of "art" the game could have achieved is all but lost in a poor foundation for a game.
Sorry, Serena!
First off: I think the concept of Serena is a good one. The graphics are suitable for a game like this and the fact that you can play the game for free is yet another reason to try it out for sure. Doing so I tried my best to enjoy playing Serena, or at least find it sufficiently entertaining. Alas, I found out pretty soon that I wouldn't make it to the end, even if that ending was just a small hour away.
Why did I detach that quickly? Well, for starters because the voice acting was unbearable. Over acted in every sense of the word. The fact that you had to listen to the same lines over and over again didn't help either. Some voice recordings were not even filtered correctly, the mic buzz was noticeable.
Much of the progress in the game was achieved without being notified about it in any way. This made the game feel very slow and stubborn. I've watched a walk-through on YouTube to see where the game would have taken me had I played it till the end: Good story, originally made up ending with a very nice surprise to it.
Had the voice acting been (way) better, had the coding excluded the possibility of hearing the same spoken lines over and over again, then this would have been a great little horror experience. Good idea, bad implementation.
SummaryHow long has it been? A man sits in a distant getaway cabin waiting for his wife Serena. Where is she? Things in the cabin evoke memories, and the husband comes to a disturbing realization... This short point-and-click adventure is the result of a massive collaborative effort between dozens of fans and designers of adventure games.