Sinister City
Skip · Narrative · 2014
The verdict
SKIP IT.
The value isn't there at $0.99.
- Length
- 1.8h
- Value
- $0.55/hr
- Reviews
- 66% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 512 MB of memory, 1024x768 resolution, 297 MB of storage. Windows only.
Who would name their town Sinister City? Vampires, of course! When John discovers his bride-to-be has been kidnapped by Sinister City's number one bloodsucker, there's only one thing to do - search for hidden objects! And kill vampires! Or at least insult them until they give your girl back.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
The lowest price on record is $0.09, set in August 2015. It has been discounted 91 times in the 12 years tracked here, typically at 51 percent off, with about 5 weeks between sales. Today it is at full price. The last sale was about 6 weeks ago, and on this game's rhythm the next one tends to arrive within 5 weeks.
It is cheaper than 92 percent of its genre, and less well reviewed than 88 percent. Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends ($1.99, scores 44) outscores it, and so does Frankenstein: Master of Death ($4.99, scores 60). Both sit among its closest neighbours.
Steam's global achievement data says about 15 percent of players ever finish it. On a 1.8-hour game, that is a lot of paid-for hours most people never see. Inside the two-hour refund window, 57 percent of the 291 reviews written there were positive, against 66 percent overall, and those are 24 percent of everything written about it.
The drop-off
25% start to 15% finishA normal fall-off for a game this long. Steam global achievements
Players
1 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
What players say
I've played a lot of HOG's in my time. Is this the best? No, definitely not, but I still loved the goofy, corniness of the story. I'll recommend it, especially for the low price.
It's worth playing through once, although some of the puzzles are completely illogical.
The worst Hidden object game I've ever played. Literally the worst. I mean, I've played other HoG games that had either poor story, or bad gameplay, or some technical issues. But this game, without slightest doubts, managed to hit the jackpot in this matter! The moment I've seen that the main character walks through textures - I was this close to drop the game right away. It's not just bad, it's... shame. W-why even...
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Embed the live badge, copy the line, or download the card.
Sinister City scores 20/100 on the BANG Score (a skip). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/326180/sinister-cityThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 22, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.