I fully intended to play the game upon its original release but it somehow slipped through the cracks and so I had no preconceptions of the title going into this review. I’m pleased to say that this enhanced version of The Sinking City really does seem to solve all the technical problems that it seems people had with the 2019 release and to me, stands up as one of – if not THE - best games based on Lovecraft’s works.
The series has always been about the creative kills; drop a piano on an unsuspecting criminal, poison the mob boss’ morning gin, dress up as a clown and beat a villain to death with a frying pan at his child's birthday party etc.
It’s a series about creativity, of how cunning or sadistic can you be? My strategy would always be - try to plan something clever. Fail. Panic, ending up with bursting into a room, shooting the target and then hiding in the nearest bin.
During the 80's and early '90s, the audio analogue tape was one of the main storage mediums with a capacity of 600 Kb stored as actual sound.
It wasn't very reliable, to begin with, since tapes and tape recorders varied greatly in quality and compatibility.
If not stored properly, tapes have a tendency to degrade over time, especially if left near strong magnetic/electric fields (like cathode monitors/TVs, speakers, children, power sources, power plants, EMP bombs, any kind of star, ...).
Sometimes, some of the data can still be recovered even after decades of mistreatment.
Tape Recovery Simulator 96K builds new game mechanics around old data recovery tricks.
Caffeine Withdrawal Games’ philosophy is “games you haven’t played before” and TRS 96K is the perfect example of it.
