Recommending TonyMurray's Favourite Games and Favourite Girls

[JJ1960]

Intertwined by Nyx Valeria

I’ve finally found a game worthy of claiming the final spot in my top ten, and not only that, but if I was ranking those games, Intertwined would sit quite high in the list. I really enjoyed my first playthrough and am looking forward to experiencing more of the game by playing individual paths while I wait for the next update.

This is definitely one of those games that you need to play several times in order to appreciate it fully. I love that, because I want to spend a lot of time in a game that I enjoy, and if it is set up with multiple pathways, that are exclusive of each other, you can do just that. I recommend playing “blind” first of all – with no expectations or targets, just making the choices you want to make in the moment. That way, I think you’ll get the best of all the little twists and reveals as they hit you for the first time. I did it that way and had a few little gut punches as my choices came back to bite my ass, and it’s great when a game can make me feel that way.

In any other game, those myriad twists and revelations would be coincidental to the point of absurdity, but it’s pretty much literally the name of the game here. I don’t mind it at all because it’s deliberate and clever without trying too hard to be clever. None of the twists are really that convoluted – most of them can be spotted well in advance of them being sprung – but they still work well and I love the way the story has been interwoven like this.

I also love the way the choices really do have an impact. A wrong move can not only lock you out of a particular love interest, but others will avoid you as well, as they show solidarity with a friend you’ve hurt. I don’t think enough games show that side of relationships, as they usually only focus on the impact on the person immediately effected.

The only thing that could stop this game doing well for me then, was the girls, and I am plenty happy with the selection I was offered. The LIs and side girls here presented me with a tasting menu of all the things I look for in a woman. Not only are there a good number of girls you can interact with, but they would probably end up with the best average ranking in my tier list. I haven’t given out three tier-one places to a single game before this one, but on another day Intertwined could perhaps have more than that.

The actual characters are really nice as well, with a good variety of personalities, and the main girls mostly have a good bit of story too, rather than just showing up as eye candy and potential lewd-scene partners. My one complaint is the same one I often find in these games, and that is regarding the range of skin tones used. There are a couple of characters (it might just be Alexis and MC, actually, and I'll note that Alexis looks fine in my character card below!) who look a bit out of place as everyone else looks vibrant and healthy, but those two are practically grey. I’m not sure why this comes up quite a bit, or if it’s just me, but it definitely looks a bit odd, and in Alexis’s case, maybe makes the difference between a tier-two and tier-three placement.
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I will say I appreciate this thread and your opinions. Keep up the good work.

I agree that this is a good game where choices actually do matter. There are plenty of "oh, shit, I really shouldn't have done that" moments when going through the first time, unlike a lot of games where they give you choices but the results aren't really that different. While the name of the game should be a dead giveaway it did get to a point for me where the interconnections got to be too convenient, so many twists where it didn't make a lot of sense but seemed to be there just to screw with the player. It reminded me of a horror movie where there is jump scare after jump scare so that the novelty wore off. I will be doing another couple of playthroughs with different choices though to see how they play out.

 

[TonyMurray]

Helping the Hotties by xRed Games

This one lives up to its name in that there are hotties, and you… help them. It’s a fun game, but not one that I felt had a lot of emotional depth, and it’s definitely one that I don’t think I’d want to overanalyse. The story is pretty basic, and relies a fair bit on “porn logic”, which is why I wouldn’t want to delve too deeply into the decisions and the situations you can find yourself in. Needless to say, more than many other games, much of what happens in this one I feel would just never happen in the real world.

The graphics are pretty good overall and the girls are actually really good quality. There’s a familiar model or two here, but I don’t mind that because they are models I like, and the little changes made to them work well. These models are always going to rank highly for me, and it’s no exception here. The character behind the face is maybe not the greatest for some of the girls though, and there’s definitely an element of them being too quick to jump your bones. Even the girls who are among the last to feature in the lewds gallery are quick when you consider the time between first interest shown and first dropping their knickers. It feels like you just get to a certain point in the game and all of a sudden this character is shown to be interested in that way, and then a few scenes later, you’re banging her. There’s just no real build up to any of them.

Despite that, it’s still a decent enough game, just not one that managed to hit my feelings at any point. The gameplay itself is okay, although some of the choices are a bit incongruous and even if there are not proper pathways for each girl, certain choices still lock you out of scenes with other girls, meaning you would need multiple playthroughs to see everything, and I don’t feel like this is a multiple playthrough sort of game.

There are minigames in here as well, which I think are quite poor. There’s only one variety, so once you’ve played it once or twice, there’s nothing new and it just gets in the way. These could easily have been swapped out for a couple of choices with the same effect. There are also certain challenges or tasks that you get rewards for, but I didn’t think these were well implemented as they had no impact on the game and if you want to see the scenes/renders, you can just use a gallery unlocker. A better game would make you want to unlock everything organically.

Same with the panty finder, which is just a case of finding random pairs of knickers all over the place to unlock special renders. This is so random though, that it feels it has no place in the game. Like you can find a girl’s knickers under your pillow several times, or under the bed of another girl who doesn’t even share the same room. It’s not even as if you’re finding them in that girl’s actual room, which would make more sense. Sometimes you can play a scene and every change of viewpoint has a pair of knickers for you to pick up as you’re talking to someone, indoors or outdoors, so it was just a bit overdone. All I’ll say is that it seems these visiting girls must have brought a spare couple of dozen pairs of knickers each for some reason!

If it wasn’t for the quality of the girls, I would definitely say this is a “play and forget” game. My recommendation is a blind playthrough and then checking out any other scenes in the gallery rather than playing through again to see what you missed. The extra story elements won’t really add up to much, as the missed scenes will generally be lewd anyway, or just leading into a lewd scene.

 

[TonyMurray]

Price of Power by Pandaman Games

Two things to note here before I start: One, I love fantasy; and two, it’s a lot harder to make a good fantasy AVN than a good modern AVN – you have all the extras of worldbuilding to factor in on top of the character and story parts.

Sadly, this one failed for me on that worldbuilding – the idea was solid enough, but I don’t think it really works as an AVN, for me at least. Even with this being a slow burn, there just isn’t the time to create a believable world before you’re diving into the story and the characters, and all aspects of the game suffer a bit for that. I couldn’t get invested in the story or the characters (either MC or his companions).

The introduction of some sci-fi elements then made it less enjoyable for me, as I felt it just overcomplicated things, and I also actively disliked some of the ways the sci-fi elements were shown, particularly with screens of information which I wouldn’t want to read in a book, let alone a game, and the way these came up was also quite jarring.

The graphics were okay but perhaps a little basic, with some of the sequences of renders lacking a bit in fluidity, and the lewd scenes generally being far too short. The LIs are minimal, but not bad, however this does mean that there are few lewd scenes, and those you get are restricted to just one or two of the girls.

All in all, this combined to making this a game that isn’t really for me, despite having some good potential as something a little different.

My status @ Chapter 23: Not continuing.

 

[TonyMurray]

Because I Love Her by The Typist

I decided to try this out after enjoying some elements of The Adventurous Couple. This one started out a little differently, with the girlfriend instigating a kiss between you and her sister, and then pushing for you to take it further. It mostly then moves into a typical sharing game with nothing to set it above the rest, except that the graphics are pretty good and a couple of the girls look great.

I did think everything was a bit rushed, with no real build up either to the sex or the conversations leading to new situations. I think in a game like this, if you’re going to feature the very first experiments of a couple with no experience in this area, they can’t just jump in with both feet, you need to build up to it or it just won’t feel quite right.

Although there isn’t a vast amount of story in this game so far, and only a handful of short lewd scenes, it still manages to evolve from “I think it would be sexy to watch you kiss another girl” to “let’s invite a guy over for a bit of fun, I’ll fuck him and you can fuck my virgin sister” in no time at all. There’s no emotional depth and very little story building, so it feels a bit like the planning involved getting a list of scenes and then writing a path to link them as quickly as possible.

It's worth noting that there are two versions of this game, with the original having a bit more content (so far) but the remake looking and playing far better.

My status @ Episode 1 - Part 1: Not continuing.