Among Us – Season 1 (Series) Review

 

Among Us is the most popular and famous Game in the Social Deduction genre. While it has seen the peak of its popularity between 2020 and 2021, it still gathers a 5 digit player count everyday on Steam and has many more players on console and mobile devices.

After so many other videogame franchises, like Cuphead, Castlevania, Cyberpunk, Sonic the Hedgehog or League of Legends, have gotten animated show adaptations, it’s not a big surprise that Among Us has gotten a Series as well.

Season 1 of the Among Us Series features 10 short episodes, which each are 10-15 minutes long. The show has therefore more of a movie length, but at least this also prevents it from overstaying its welcome. As a Paramount Original, Among Us is currently exclusively available via Paramount +. I am, however, optimistic, that Among Us will eventually also release on Blu-Ray, since Paramount has a relatively strong track record of releasing most of Paramount + exclusive shows eventually also via physical media.

Fans of Among Us will recognize many details from the game. You can clearly see that the people who made the show have also played the game. This starts with the visual style, which is identical to that of the game. Something we don’t see all that often in other videogame adaptations (looking at you, Sonic and Minecraft Movies), but admittedly the visual style of Among Us the game also makes it easier to stay true to it for the series. Regardless, this immediately makes you feel right at home and was the right choice.

The narrative stays close enough to the game as well and gives us one 2-hour-long “Whodunit” story, which is obviously a fitting choice for Among Us. Since the game itself is more focused on gameplay mechanics than pure lore, they had to take some creative liberties, but they are certainly smaller than in most other adaptations.

Most of my criticism in that regard are rather nitpicks, but I, for example, would have wished they had stayed truer to the original Imposter design from the games. The new design makes sense with the story of the series, but I personally prefer the classic look. They could have also shown us even more tasks from the game. They already included a lot, but I wouldn’t have minded staying even closer to the source material.

That being said, the show definitely deserves a lot of respect for giving us so many recognizable Among Us moments. I don’t want to really spoiler anything, but nearly all the rooms of the original Skeld map appear in the show and many of the tasks, events and different roles of Among Us make an appearance as well. There are even short scenes that pay homage to the camera perspective of the original Among Us and Among Us 3D. Many of the iconic sound effects and songs appear during the show too. This really is a show for the fans, which I imagine will be very satisfied with the high level of fan-service present. People, on the other hand, who have never played Among Us might feel a bit left out in the dark. It’s not like they wouldn’t be able to follow the plot (no prior knowledge required on that part), but I don’t think they will be able to appreciate the show in the same way. Without the Among Us bonus, the series could easily seem like a more forgettable random animated Scifi adventure.  

Another big plus of the show, however, is the cast of characters. Paramount hired a bunch of famous actors from the big screen plus some very experienced voice actors. I particularly liked Randall Park as Red and Elijah Wood as Green. There is a good variety of different personalities and roles from the game included. You keep speculating each episode on who has been behaving the most suspicious. They could have included 1-2 more insane and irrational characters to replicate the random matchmaking experience of Among Us. There was also no real cursing in the show, which is certainly unlike real Among Us lobbies, but I do understand why they opted not to include this aspect of the game.

While we don’t have any confirmation of future seasons, I personally believe that Season 1 was only the beginning. Season 1 plays exclusively on the Skeld Spaceship (aka the default Among Us Map), but there are a bunch of other maps like Polus, Mira HQ or Fungle, which could easily feature a season each. The Among Us formula would also make it easy to replace all the dead characters with new voice actors with the same colour, just like a new match. Since Season 1 got a positive reception and there is currently even a narrative-driven Spin-Off Game for Among Us in development, I would be surprised if we didn’t get to see more seasons in the upcoming years.

 

Result:

Season 1 of Among Us the Series manages to capture the spirit of its source material very well and that’s certainly not something every Videogame adaptation can claim. It looks like Among Us and it also mostly feels like Among Us as well. Fans of the game should certainly not miss out on this strong series. I can’t necessarily recommend it to fans without prior knowledge of the source material, however, since they will miss out on a lot of the references and easter eggs and those really help to carry the series. Through its short runtime of only around 2 hours, the show feels more like one Among Us movie than a full-fledged series, but this is a strong starting point to build up on.

 

7.5/10

My take on the Future of Epic Games (Opinion)

 

Is Epic Games in a Crisis? Will Fortnite shutdown soon? In my opinion the answer to the first question is “Yes” and the answer to the second question is “No”, at least not any time soon and not even for a long time, if Epic starts to acknowledge their mistakes, which, on the other hand, seems somewhat doubtful.

In 2023 Epic fired over 800 employees to save costs and now in 2026 they have let go of another 1000 Fortnite developers. Additionally, they have increased the prices for their Vbucks and announced the shutdown of a couple of Fortnite Gamemodes.

To understand the significance of this, it is important to highlight that Fortnite is currently the only thing that keeps Epic Games alive. Epic has made it their mission to rival Steam, which so far is a fruitless effort. I understand the desire to want to become a big player, but you can’t force it. The Epic Game Store is the second-biggest launcher for PC Games. There is no doubt about this, but the question remains: At what cost?

Epic offers an apparently attractive deal for developers by taking a smaller commission for publishing games. Steam or the Playstation Store, for example, usually take around 30% commission of games published on their platform, while Epic only takes around 12%.

The problem, however, is that the Epic Game Store is not popular among players. On the contrary, the Epic Games Store probably has the most negative reception among all Launchers. A lot of that is Epic’s fault, like the shady spying on their own players scheme or their questionable business ethics, for which they already got sued and lost. I would therefore argue that most developers would rather allow Steam and Playstation to take bigger cuts on platforms, they can actually sell a lot of copies on. A smaller part of a large cake is better than a large part of a tiny pie.

And let’s also not forget that while Epic might take a smaller commission, they are the safe haven of Microtransactions and NFT games. All the NFT Games, which are not allowed on most other platforms and stores, are more than welcome in the Epic Games Store, which is openly pursuing them.

Whenever Epic gets involved in a game, they also get spiked up with Microtransactions. You just have to remember how tame Fall Guys and Rocket League, for example, were, before Epic got their greedy hands on them. It’s a difference like day and night. Just ask some of their players.

Epic tried and still tries to force themself on the map by regularly paying for time-limited exclusivity of games for a year or two before they will also launch on Steam or, in some cases, even permanent exclusivity for some smaller studios. Epic invests a lot in this and it is simply not paying off. Whether the negative perception is deserved or not, but they can’t seem to shake it off and they spend way more money on those deals than they seem to get out of it. Most players just either wait it out or buy the games on console instead.

Epic is also giving away free games to its users every single week. As a consumer I find that awesome. Over the years I have collected around 400 games on Epic, many of them either AAA or very promising Indie titles and I haven’t ever spent a cent on the Epic Games Store. But you also kind of see the problem. These games are great for free-riders like me, but it doesn’t convince anybody to actually start spending money on this store now. And giving away games for free isn’t cheap for Epic. They have to spend a lot of money to do so, which simply isn’t profitable.

You can start to see how all of this combines. The Epic Game Store has never been profitable or sustainable. They make a big loss with it every year in the hope of one day magically turning everything around. It might be understandable that they tried it in the beginning of the big Fortnite Hype between 2017 and 2021, but after that point most companies would have come to the conclusion that it simply didn’t work and downsized their store to a more healthy size, similar to EA or Ubisoft (not that their stores would be role models by any means). It nearly seems like arrogance that Epic refuses to accept this reality.

But it isn’t just the Epic Game Store. Most other games from Epic are also not big money-printing machines. Rocket League and Fall Guys are probably some of their most successful assets besides Fortnite and both games have their peak times behind them and get less support by Epic nowadays. Both games still generate income, but it isn’t massive. Rumbleverse might have been a good game, but it went up in flames and their famous Unreal Tournament franchise they have for unknown reasons completely abandoned. Most other games they were involved with were big commercial failures. Fortnite is really keeping the lights on at Epic.

 

Result:

Epic Games is, in my opinion, a house of cards with only one solid pillar, which is Fortnite. If this pillar gets even in a small crisis, then the whole building is starting to shake. This is a huge problem and it’s baffling how Epic hasn’t been able to change this. You usually have two options. You either invest a lot and try to diversify, which is obviously what Epic tried to do. If that, however, fails, you have to downsize to a healthy level to guarantee your long-term survival. Epic hasn’t done that yet and I am not convinced they really will. They just fired a lot of people, made a few marketing statements and will probably call it a day now.

You just have to compare Epic to Sony or Valve to see how fragile the situation of Epic Games is. If Helldivers 2 or the next Horizon or Last of Us flops, it’s not great for Sony, but they don’t have to worry about the future of the company whatsoever and the same goes for Valve. If Fortnite would lose 50% of their players overnight, then the whole of Epic Games would get in a life-threatening situation. It’s like a company, where you see all the executives wearing the most expensive suits and dining in the best restaurants in town and you think they probably have a very successful business, but they can barely afford to pay their monthly interest rate.

I am far from being a business consultant, but I don’t understand why Epic isn’t stopping these unsuccessful exclusivity deals, which cost more than they gain, remove or at least reduce the amount of free games, which are just the gaming equivalent of sportswashing and equally unsuccessful. And Epic should also stop paying money for Fortnite creative maps. Since the launch of UEFN, they have spent around 900 million dollars on those maps. This should be 0, since Fortnite Creative will a) never be the next Roblox and b) doesn’t need any money to do what it’s doing right now anyway.

If Epic would do all of that (which I would call reconnecting with reality) than the company could have a bright long-term future. I, however, think their hubris will prevent them from doing so. They will continue their failed dream of becoming the biggest and most popular launcher for PC Games and the next real crisis at Fortnite will get close to knocking them over and they will need a bailout from a scammy company like the Chinese giant Tencent and nobody can really want that.   

Unchained (PC) Review

 

Today we are taking a look at Unchained, the F2P Horror Game on Steam. It is easily confused with Unchained, the F2P FPS Game on Steam, which actually looks even more interesting than the Horror one.

Anyway, the Horror Game Unchained has a potentially interesting AI feature. The game actually involves your Computer settings and Desktop into the gameplay. Some say the game interacting with your Desktop is the real Horror. I indeed have to agree. The first time this happened, I actually got quite spooked.

The game is essentially split into two sides. The one side is talking with the AI and using your PC settings to interact with it. The other part is more classic Horror Walking Simulator gameplay we know from most smaller Horror Games. This part, however, was also a bit underwhelming. The Horror elements are mostly audio-based. There isn’t really anything to interact with or look at. The sound effects are pretty decent, though.

The ending of Unchained also feels both pointless and rushed. Just as you thought the game was actually going to start now, it abruptly ends. The ending could have been a good plot point to go on from, but Unchained doesn’t do anything with it and just gives up. It nearly seems like the developer lost interest halfway through and just released the game as is.  

Unchained only has 1 linear ending and features no Steam Achievements.

 

Result:

Unchained had an interesting premise with the AI feature, but sadly doesn’t do anything with it. Once you think the feature might now actually interact with you in a meaningful way, the game already ends. The classic Horror gameplay in Unchained is not strong enough to save the game. Unchained has left a lot of potential unused. It might be worth a look to some Horror fans for the AI feature, but the game is ultimately rather mediocre and left me disappointed.

 

4.5/10

AAA Dynamic Scenes (PS5/PS4) Review

 

I have previously been checking out the Slide Puzzle Games ‘Slide N’ Go’, ‘Avatar Island’ and ‘Splash of Color’ as well as the more classic Puzzle Games ‘HIQ Ace’ and ‘HIQ Ace Unlimited’. Today we are looking at another more classic Puzzle Game called ‘AAA Dynamic Scenes’.

This game has exactly one feature that makes it stand out from other classic Puzzle Games: the name-giving ‘Dynamic Pictures’.

Other Puzzle Games all have static images. This means the background images of the puzzles are constantly the same. With Dynamic Pictures this is different. The image itself isn’t moving around in the background, but the content on the image is. That being said, it’s not like the picture would continuously change around and become unrecognizable after a while. The majority of the content on display stays the same, but you get elements like birds flying throughout the picture, clouds moving around or neon lighting signs flashing brightly. Additionally, you will see weather going on and hear the wind howling or rain falling down while you place the pieces.

This is a really cool element, that freshens things up. You can, for example, struggle to place a specific puzzle piece, but then you suddenly see a bird passing by on this piece and a second later you see it on another puzzle piece, which you actually have already positioned. Based on this, you now have an idea on where the other piece belongs. This is something you don’t get to experience in any of the other Picture Puzzle Games.

AAA Dynamic Scenes feature only 1 Gamemode, which is your classic Puzzle Picture placement. There are 3 difficulties, but those only change the size of the puzzle. The only way to bring in some variety is the Rotation feature. With this feature activated, you not only have to guess the right position of a puzzle piece, but also the right angle for placement. Like most Picture Puzzle Games, AAA Dynamic Scenes also supports a Preview Feature. In this game, it is nearly a bit too generous, however. While in most other games the preview image replaces the placed pieces till it is deactivated to give you just an idea of how the finished image should look like, in AAA Dynamic Scenes the Preview image is being put over the placed pieces and makes it really easy to complete it.

The biggest downside of this game is, in my opinion, certainly the lack of content. The free base game only features 3 pictures for free. This is the lowest amount of any Picture Puzzle Game I have ever played and unfortunately makes the game go stale after a while. I understand that dynamic pictures require more effort to produce, but this amount is simply too low. 42 additional pictures can be purchased for 2 Euro each (That’s expensive!), in small combination packages or with the “All Scenes” DLC for 20 Euro, which includes all of them.

AAA Dynamic Scenes features 24 Playstation Trophies, including a Platinum and 7 Gold Trophies. Unlocking the Platinum, however, does require some effort. You have to, for example, place 1000 puzzle pieces in a row without an error (I recommend Playstation Cloud saves for this), place and rotate 5000 pieces in total and complete 10 hard Puzzles. It should take around 8-10 hours to complete the game. Since the game features both a PS4 and PS5 version, there are even two Platinum trophies to be earned, but there is no autopop between versions. The game might be worth a look for Trophy hunters, if you either really like Puzzle Games or you have a lot of patience. I strongly recommend not attempting to complete it in one setting, however. Instead, I would suggest completing 2-3 puzzles per day over a span of a couple of weeks. This is much more enjoyable and lets you maintain your sanity.

 

Result:

AAA Dynamic Scenes is a strong addition to the Picture Puzzle Game genre. The Dynamic Pictures feature is a game changer. It vitalizes the otherwise more rigid format. It is certainly one of the most fun Picture Puzzle Games I have ever played. Unfortunately, the amount of content of the free version is devastatingly low. After a short while, you will know the 3 puzzles inside out despite the dynamic element and the possibility of rotation. This negatively affects the score, but I would still recommend the game to Picture Puzzle enthusiasts.

 

6.8/10