Recommending TonyMurray's Favourite Games and Favourite Girls
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TonyMurray
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My New Memories: The Beginning, by Killer7
I’ll start off by saying I haven’t played the original game, My New Memories, yet – I wanted to try this prequel out first though as it’s first chronologically. Having liked it, I will definitely go on to try the original, though I might leave it a little while rather than going straight in and feeling like I’ve missed a lot between the two!
The graphics are pretty good here and the renders are quite economical as well, with a high dialogue-to-renders ratio. You get a good number of renders that are practically talking heads, so the character (or sometimes multiple characters) is central and head on, leaving the background as exactly that. I presume this is easier for rendering, and I think it works well here, whereas in games with lower-quality renders, it doesn’t work so well for me, and certainly doesn’t look as good. In those games, they are typically separate parts – a background with a character superimposed in the foreground, and you will often see them swapped out as the speaker changes – that’s not what we have here at all, just so I’m clear on that.
The story is the main part of the game by far, and it’s one where the dev notes are pretty clear about that – it’s a “story heavy visual novel” and “more story than lewds”. I don’t mind this, because it’s easy to follow and also quite entertaining. It won’t be for everyone though, because you do need to really engage that suspension of disbelief. Pretty much everyone is into the MC, and is also openly happy for other women to be into him. Several of the LIs talk about the MC having multiple girlfriends as well as themselves, and many of them include his twin sister in this as well, so there are really no problems with the taboo here – in fact, it’s pretty much only the MC and his sister (and their mother, a bit) who seem to have any reservations when it comes to the incest part of it all.
Overall it’s just an easy-going story. Easy to read, easy to progress through, no complicated choices to navigate, no character lock-outs (so far?) to consider. It’s another of those games for me like My Dorm, where despite the taboo, and despite the ridiculous idea (if you take a step outside of Pornland), it manages to feel kind of wholesome. Like with My Dorm, that’s all because of the character relationships, and how open everyone is with each other and with their feelings – and of course how openminded everyone is.
Two key notes on the girls in this game: one, I think they are a good group overall. The three I’ve put in tier 2 (and to be honest the twins’ mom, Bethany, as well) just have something about them. Character definitely comes into it, but in terms of looks, there’s an overriding cuteness factor I’m seeing here. And two, the dev notes state that all the girls (actually, it says “all the characters”) you will meet in the game will eventually be lewdable. I appreciate that sort of heads up, as it’s always frustrating to find a character you like and then learn that there’s no possible path to her.
I’ll start off by saying I haven’t played the original game, My New Memories, yet – I wanted to try this prequel out first though as it’s first chronologically. Having liked it, I will definitely go on to try the original, though I might leave it a little while rather than going straight in and feeling like I’ve missed a lot between the two!
The graphics are pretty good here and the renders are quite economical as well, with a high dialogue-to-renders ratio. You get a good number of renders that are practically talking heads, so the character (or sometimes multiple characters) is central and head on, leaving the background as exactly that. I presume this is easier for rendering, and I think it works well here, whereas in games with lower-quality renders, it doesn’t work so well for me, and certainly doesn’t look as good. In those games, they are typically separate parts – a background with a character superimposed in the foreground, and you will often see them swapped out as the speaker changes – that’s not what we have here at all, just so I’m clear on that.
The story is the main part of the game by far, and it’s one where the dev notes are pretty clear about that – it’s a “story heavy visual novel” and “more story than lewds”. I don’t mind this, because it’s easy to follow and also quite entertaining. It won’t be for everyone though, because you do need to really engage that suspension of disbelief. Pretty much everyone is into the MC, and is also openly happy for other women to be into him. Several of the LIs talk about the MC having multiple girlfriends as well as themselves, and many of them include his twin sister in this as well, so there are really no problems with the taboo here – in fact, it’s pretty much only the MC and his sister (and their mother, a bit) who seem to have any reservations when it comes to the incest part of it all.
Overall it’s just an easy-going story. Easy to read, easy to progress through, no complicated choices to navigate, no character lock-outs (so far?) to consider. It’s another of those games for me like My Dorm, where despite the taboo, and despite the ridiculous idea (if you take a step outside of Pornland), it manages to feel kind of wholesome. Like with My Dorm, that’s all because of the character relationships, and how open everyone is with each other and with their feelings – and of course how openminded everyone is.
Two key notes on the girls in this game: one, I think they are a good group overall. The three I’ve put in tier 2 (and to be honest the twins’ mom, Bethany, as well) just have something about them. Character definitely comes into it, but in terms of looks, there’s an overriding cuteness factor I’m seeing here. And two, the dev notes state that all the girls (actually, it says “all the characters”) you will meet in the game will eventually be lewdable. I appreciate that sort of heads up, as it’s always frustrating to find a character you like and then learn that there’s no possible path to her.
LiMp17
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Oh man, if it wasn´t for the two updates a year I would agree on most of those games.
TonyMurray
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My Brother’s Wife by Beanie Guy Studio
This is a game that really frustrates me (so sorry for the long review!). There are actually some really good elements to it that I like a lot, but there are some really bad bits too, and the frustrating thing is that many of those bad bits would be relatively easy to resolve. I’ll continue playing (for now at least) because of those good elements, and because some of the bad elements can be quickly and easily edited away before I start playing each new update…
I’ll start with the good. I like the premise, and I think the main LI, the brother’s wife (Jennifer) is really nice. She’s one of those characters who just seems to have a little something extra about her looks that just works for me – though it might be that a bit of the personality creeps in when I’m trying to judge solely based on looks here. Some of the other characters are very easy on the eye too, although there are also some who land at the other end of that scale for me.
In terms of the presumed end game (beginning a relationship with—or at least fucking—Jennifer), it’s very much a slow burn, but I think it’s done well. It manages to feel a bit more natural as there’s a gradual build-up with the two characters getting to know each other and then becoming more at ease with each other and slowly starting to tease, etc. I feel too many of these games jump too far too early, so I always appreciate it when one takes a slower approach, so long as it’s done in the right way. And in terms of the “blue balling”, there are other girls you can have scenes with, so it’s not just a case of waiting for something to happen with Jennifer.
Now for the bad… Although most of it is fine, some of the renders look terrible. This is mostly exterior settings, such as the front of the house, which are of a very low quality, although (thankfully) they don’t tend to come up too much. There are animations in the game, and they are typically looped, although there are some that definitely shouldn’t be looped – for instance, there’s a scene where Jennifer is getting out of the car and flashes her knickers, and it plays her moving her leg to get out, then it’s back in the car, then it’s moving again, and back again, and it looks ridiculous.
The gameplay generally goes well and there are plenty of choices, with definite differences depending on what you select, so you not only get two variations of some scenes, but can completely miss scenes because of certain “love” or “dom” levels. Although this can be good, here I would say it’s not always clear what the choices should reflect in that sense – what should essentially add or remove love points. Everything also seems to have both a positive and a negative, so you can be alone with Jennifer and if you make one choice it will give love points to her but also hate points to the brother, who isn’t there to find out about whatever’s going on. I just feel that the mechanics of the points system is a bit weird. Without looking at it in too much depth, I did notice that it appears to reset each day, so you build points and then depending on the end-of-day levels, you get the actual stat increases which then shape some of those paths as the game progresses. So definite good and bad points for the points system and choices…
Finally, there are two really easily fixed things that bugged me. One is the random inclusion, at the end of v0.11, of a poorly executed free roam in a bar. Getting this far through a game and then suddenly throwing in a free roam is bad enough, but throwing in a bad free roam is worse. And the second, but most annoying thing, is that the text is awful. The font for dialogue is Comic Sans, and some of the text colours are not the easiest to read. I edited these myself, but fortunately there’s an extension to the walkthrough mod for the game that sorts this out perfectly. The actual writing itself though is bad enough that I’d call it sloppy. The dialogue (and narration) is absolutely littered with typos, and while some typos are always to be expected, here there are just too many. And it’s not just the quantity of them, but that so many are so obvious that I just can’t see someone even with English as a second or third language missing them, so it suggests a lack of care in this area of the game’s production.
This is a game that really frustrates me (so sorry for the long review!). There are actually some really good elements to it that I like a lot, but there are some really bad bits too, and the frustrating thing is that many of those bad bits would be relatively easy to resolve. I’ll continue playing (for now at least) because of those good elements, and because some of the bad elements can be quickly and easily edited away before I start playing each new update…
I’ll start with the good. I like the premise, and I think the main LI, the brother’s wife (Jennifer) is really nice. She’s one of those characters who just seems to have a little something extra about her looks that just works for me – though it might be that a bit of the personality creeps in when I’m trying to judge solely based on looks here. Some of the other characters are very easy on the eye too, although there are also some who land at the other end of that scale for me.
In terms of the presumed end game (beginning a relationship with—or at least fucking—Jennifer), it’s very much a slow burn, but I think it’s done well. It manages to feel a bit more natural as there’s a gradual build-up with the two characters getting to know each other and then becoming more at ease with each other and slowly starting to tease, etc. I feel too many of these games jump too far too early, so I always appreciate it when one takes a slower approach, so long as it’s done in the right way. And in terms of the “blue balling”, there are other girls you can have scenes with, so it’s not just a case of waiting for something to happen with Jennifer.
Now for the bad… Although most of it is fine, some of the renders look terrible. This is mostly exterior settings, such as the front of the house, which are of a very low quality, although (thankfully) they don’t tend to come up too much. There are animations in the game, and they are typically looped, although there are some that definitely shouldn’t be looped – for instance, there’s a scene where Jennifer is getting out of the car and flashes her knickers, and it plays her moving her leg to get out, then it’s back in the car, then it’s moving again, and back again, and it looks ridiculous.
The gameplay generally goes well and there are plenty of choices, with definite differences depending on what you select, so you not only get two variations of some scenes, but can completely miss scenes because of certain “love” or “dom” levels. Although this can be good, here I would say it’s not always clear what the choices should reflect in that sense – what should essentially add or remove love points. Everything also seems to have both a positive and a negative, so you can be alone with Jennifer and if you make one choice it will give love points to her but also hate points to the brother, who isn’t there to find out about whatever’s going on. I just feel that the mechanics of the points system is a bit weird. Without looking at it in too much depth, I did notice that it appears to reset each day, so you build points and then depending on the end-of-day levels, you get the actual stat increases which then shape some of those paths as the game progresses. So definite good and bad points for the points system and choices…
Finally, there are two really easily fixed things that bugged me. One is the random inclusion, at the end of v0.11, of a poorly executed free roam in a bar. Getting this far through a game and then suddenly throwing in a free roam is bad enough, but throwing in a bad free roam is worse. And the second, but most annoying thing, is that the text is awful. The font for dialogue is Comic Sans, and some of the text colours are not the easiest to read. I edited these myself, but fortunately there’s an extension to the walkthrough mod for the game that sorts this out perfectly. The actual writing itself though is bad enough that I’d call it sloppy. The dialogue (and narration) is absolutely littered with typos, and while some typos are always to be expected, here there are just too many. And it’s not just the quantity of them, but that so many are so obvious that I just can’t see someone even with English as a second or third language missing them, so it suggests a lack of care in this area of the game’s production.
Lagunavii
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Well, that review didn't really tell me anything you have not told me over the last couple of days.. Though I will admit, a shit freeroam introduced so late is somewhat concerning. Still Both Jenifer and Justine look fucking hot, so if 0.12 drops on here anytime soon I have at least two contenders for Girl on the Month
TonyMurray
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Justine I did struggle with, I'll admit. I think she's maybe more of a 3 for me, but that one shot of her that I used is definitely above that. 0.12 is available here, I picked it up this morning - it just hasn't been updated in the OP yet as that tends to take a little longer.
TonyMurray
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I'm fine with it, but I only picked it up a day or two ago, so I've not had any dev-time waiting yet. For me, I think the progression with Jennifer has been pretty good (as I said, not jumping too fast), although I think we're at the point now, after 0.12, that some stuff should properly start happening - like hand stuff that they're both aware of, since they've both (choices depending) done hand stuff without the other one being aware of it (or without the other person being sober and realising whose hand it was...)
TonyMurray
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Become a Rock Star by Mr Jet
I first played this game nearly a year ago, and after getting distracted by an update for another game, I just never felt the urge to come back to it, and could never explain why. After finally getting back to it and starting again from the beginning, I’ve realised it was probably because I just wasn’t invested in the story. It’s mostly a good-looking game, but it just didn’t have enough about it to make me love it.
The main story was pretty typical for a game of this type, but it felt to me that there were odd little events thrown in just to add some drama, rather than them being properly integrated into the story. Then, one big event came up that felt like it was there specifically to start bringing the game to a close, although some parts of it had at least been tied in to earlier events. This chapter of the story also served to bring various potential love interests face-to-face, forcing you off multiple paths if you had been playing the field, as many do in a first playthrough.
This last part in particular didn’t really work for me, and I felt that there was a much easier way to achieve this – your band plays various gigs and it seems that none of your girlfriends who are not part of the band ever go to watch and support you. That would have given a natural confrontation for anyone on multiple paths.
So the story side of things didn’t really do it for me, but visually, I mostly liked this game. I say mostly, but it was basically the girls, many of whom were pushing my top three tiers, if they hadn’t already made it into them. I didn’t like the MC at all though – character-wise he was just a bit “meh”, but in terms of looks, I found him odd, especially for someone who has all these gorgeous women practically creaming themselves on sight.
The sex scenes were pretty frequent, mostly fitting in fine with the story (rather than all just being thrown in for lewds’ sake), and some of them were pretty hot too. The animations were hit and miss, with some major errors in a couple of them, such as one where one participant was wearing different clothing between the animated and still frames, and another where the flooring suddenly shifted a foot or so between animated and still frames. It was a bit jarring to look at, and that sort of thing always makes me feel like there was a lack of care and attention in making and testing the game.
The gameplay was mostly good, with a variety of choices, although I’m not entirely sure I’d say there were meaningful choices. Some options came up as having “good points” or “bad points”, but I was never really sure on what this meant going forwards (perhaps if I enjoyed the story, I’d have made additional playthroughs for the different LIs and I’d have been able to investigate this further). A few times there were multiple choices during conversation or at a party and there is no benefit to selecting them in any particular order, as you have to pick all of them to move on, so I’m never really sure what the point in these is. And lastly, the big one as far as choices goes, is the commitment. There are a few points where you can commit to a relationship, but then you can just carry on with any other girl you like as you move through the game. Other than those few confrontations at the end, there are no apparent repercussions to this, and indeed, when I finished the game, I was in a committed relationship with at least two side girls still ongoing…
I first played this game nearly a year ago, and after getting distracted by an update for another game, I just never felt the urge to come back to it, and could never explain why. After finally getting back to it and starting again from the beginning, I’ve realised it was probably because I just wasn’t invested in the story. It’s mostly a good-looking game, but it just didn’t have enough about it to make me love it.
The main story was pretty typical for a game of this type, but it felt to me that there were odd little events thrown in just to add some drama, rather than them being properly integrated into the story. Then, one big event came up that felt like it was there specifically to start bringing the game to a close, although some parts of it had at least been tied in to earlier events. This chapter of the story also served to bring various potential love interests face-to-face, forcing you off multiple paths if you had been playing the field, as many do in a first playthrough.
This last part in particular didn’t really work for me, and I felt that there was a much easier way to achieve this – your band plays various gigs and it seems that none of your girlfriends who are not part of the band ever go to watch and support you. That would have given a natural confrontation for anyone on multiple paths.
So the story side of things didn’t really do it for me, but visually, I mostly liked this game. I say mostly, but it was basically the girls, many of whom were pushing my top three tiers, if they hadn’t already made it into them. I didn’t like the MC at all though – character-wise he was just a bit “meh”, but in terms of looks, I found him odd, especially for someone who has all these gorgeous women practically creaming themselves on sight.
The sex scenes were pretty frequent, mostly fitting in fine with the story (rather than all just being thrown in for lewds’ sake), and some of them were pretty hot too. The animations were hit and miss, with some major errors in a couple of them, such as one where one participant was wearing different clothing between the animated and still frames, and another where the flooring suddenly shifted a foot or so between animated and still frames. It was a bit jarring to look at, and that sort of thing always makes me feel like there was a lack of care and attention in making and testing the game.
The gameplay was mostly good, with a variety of choices, although I’m not entirely sure I’d say there were meaningful choices. Some options came up as having “good points” or “bad points”, but I was never really sure on what this meant going forwards (perhaps if I enjoyed the story, I’d have made additional playthroughs for the different LIs and I’d have been able to investigate this further). A few times there were multiple choices during conversation or at a party and there is no benefit to selecting them in any particular order, as you have to pick all of them to move on, so I’m never really sure what the point in these is. And lastly, the big one as far as choices goes, is the commitment. There are a few points where you can commit to a relationship, but then you can just carry on with any other girl you like as you move through the game. Other than those few confrontations at the end, there are no apparent repercussions to this, and indeed, when I finished the game, I was in a committed relationship with at least two side girls still ongoing…
Zorro#34
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As it often happens, I don't recognize the girls on your lowest row...
Well, except Eva.To me, Become a Rockstar is a really good completed game, which is a rarity in the genre. While it isn't the best at anything, it also didn't disappoint me in any way. Some players criticize the game's English, but I've found it to be decent. Perhaps not being a native speaker helped. I did feel the MC was a bit underwhelming, and so I didn't entrust him with my #1 girl Jane, giving him #2 Anna instead. If only he got his Epilogue look earlier… Oh well.
Also, Jacob is a good "bro" example. The dude basically does all the work getting the band together and holds his own better than the MC in that fight.
TonyMurray
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The three others on the bottom row are all strippers you can get a dance (or a fuck, in Jasmine's case) from at the strip club one night. There are at least four other girls I nearly included, but because there were already plenty, I kept it to my original rule of girls you can get lewd scenes with (the others were MC's sister Julia, and three girls Jacob gets with).As it often happens, I don't recognize the girls on your lowest row...
To me, Become a Rockstar is a really good completed game, which is a rarity in the genre. While it isn't the best at anything, it also didn't disappoint me in any way. Some players criticize the game's English, but I've found it to be decent. Perhaps not being a native speaker helped. I did feel the MC was a bit underwhelming, and so I didn't entrust him with my #1 girl Jane, giving him #2 Anna instead. If only he got his Epilogue look earlier… Oh well.
Also, Jacob is a good "bro" example. The dude basically does all the work getting the band together and holds his own better than the MC in that fight.
MC definitely looked better in the epilogues, although I struggle to see him as the same person. I thought his face seemed a lot different as well, more than I can put down to a different hairstyle.
Zorro#34
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He did pass as the same person to me… Who's aged 15 years or so.
Btw, do you accept recommendations nowadays?
TonyMurray
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Always accept them, but I'll only play them if they appeal to me, and it might take me a while to get to them!
Lagunavii
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You've only just got your list down! This is madnessAlways accept them, but I'll only play them if they appeal to me, and it might take me a while to get to them!
TonyMurray
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Down to 296 now!
Recommendations might not change the number anyway - they might be games I decide not to go for, or they could be already on the list (in which case I will at least bump them towards the top).
Zorro#34
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I'm currently taking a break from trying new AVNs, so I decided to post my rating, as it probably won't change for a while. Most if not all of these games are probably already on your list, but maybe this will help you decide what's worth trying first and what's not.Always accept them, but I'll only play them if they appeal to me, and it might take me a while to get to them!
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Lagunavii
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That list seems very familiar, I know for a fact there's some on there he hasn't touched yet and some he won't...
But what you dropping defending Lydia for, we are close to the end now
Zorro#34
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I just didn't enjoy the character design and the overall atmosphere. I also believe I've seen some missing full stops there, which makes me mad.
TonyMurray
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I'll have to take a look at thisI just didn't enjoy the character design and the overall atmosphere. I also believe I've seen some missing full stops there, which makes me mad.
Lydia? Lydia Carter? That one's in my downloads folder waiting for the moment to try it out Will get to it before too long, I hope!