
Before I begin this review of Echoes of Mk-Ultra review, I’m going to show you a screen shot of the hidden full release listing for Steam, which is buried under 3 menus:

That is less than half of the new releases for yesterday, 6/3/24. I took another screenshot of just as many, and that wasn’t even all of them. Point is, the Steam slush pile is deep, more than I can review in a year. Echoes of MK-Ultra was released yesterday and it… well… I don’t how to put this nicely, it works. That’s the best I can say about it. You start with the worst voiceover you have ever heard:
I know the ambiance Echoes of MK-Ultra was going for with that voice-over, but it just doesn’t work. Anyway, you are given a DOS prompt and then you type help for a list of commands. You then go into your email and receive an email containing a cypher which you need to decode to log-on to this server. That’s fine. Its a puzzle. What’s not fine is this:

Buried in the bottom there is the line “Some puzzles or clues may need to researched online to find the answer.” And that’s when I quit and never came back. Going outside the game for answers wasn’t good when FEZ did it years ago and its not ok now. When you create a game, everything you need to beat the game should be in the game. Why not create a world-wide-web browser to surf the game’s internet to find the answers? There’s a pop up for the email, why not the web? Too much work I bet. That is why Echoes of MK-Ultra fails. Unless you are a l33t hacker or a glutton for punishment, please look elsewhere. This game gets a Not Recommended with a five score(slight change of format now that I’m doing Steam).
Overall: Echoes of Mk-Ultra gives you a dos prompt and cuts you loose. It’s not fun nor intuitive because the answers lie outside the game.
Verdict: Not Recommended
Score: 5
Release Date | 6/3/25 |
Cost | $2.99 |
Publisher | Ghostlayer |
P.S. I haven’t reviewed anything similar, though Buddy Simulator 1984 comes to mind.
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