DAMN 💢💢 THOSE ALIEN BASTARDS ARE GONNA PAY FOR DOWNLOADING MY RIDE ‼️ ‼️ ‼️
There are certainly better games where you hold RT until you reach the end of the track, but few that accomplish this much in so little runtime. Excellent-feeling controls that are a perfect match for the blisteringly fast, topsy-turvy obstacle-courses this'll digitize your way. It could be a bit of a sticking point that the main story isn't particularly difficult, but it's adherence to atmosphere and unbroken speed is more thrilling than the game devolving into Happy Wheels imho. Adore the sound design and the slicing mechanic!!!

Summer dress-core. A game so pristine and charming and joyful it feels like you're skipping thru a golden idyllic sunflower field. I could go into the way this game re-uses environments far too often, doesn't signpost goals at all, and has combat that is on a whole comedically easy, but that matters far less to me than how happy it made me overall. Rhapsody goes out of its way to disarm you with its completely deranged humour and corniness only for it to deliver a gutpunch right when you're not prepared.

Decimate Drive is alright. Going entirely off of the premise, this had the prospective for being one of the most effective horror games I'd be able to play. Growing up amidst a handful of cases where friends and family fell victim to (thankfully minor) vehicular accidents instilled in me a profound fear of cars. They're fucked up things, densely destructive machines, screaming hunks of steel and aluminium that instantly alter the brain chemistry of anyone behind the wheel into callous freaks fully convinced in their own invulnerability. Isn't it fucking crazy that you could be minding your own business, walking on the pavement, doing everything right, and something could just happen? All because of someone having a bad day/off their nut/losing control/insisting on breaking the speed limit to shave a minute off their commute? How am I supposed to be normal about that? I've certainly never been. It's tricky business on the Cu Chulainn Causeway, brothers 😔.

The setting of Decimate Drive, being a simple enough premise of going from A to B while under the relentless assault of vehicles in the dead of night is quite literally what I have regular nightmares of, I was interested from the jump. It handles the core pretty well, you're basically just running from checkpoint to checkpoint in the midst of a handful of underlit destruction derbies. Not exactly rich with mechanics or anything, but the game's short runtime and abundance of increasingly fucked vehicle types kept fanning the flames of tension.
There are moments where Decimate Drive hits some incredibly high notes; adept use of lighting and sound design to evoke tension. It doesn't take long for the artifice to set in, however, sharply shifting gear into a game akin to like Clustertruck. Despite the presentation of the game gunning for a sense of realism, the perpetual crashing of vehicles without any visible damage undermines the intensity and unintentionally creates a sense that they aren't putting in enough effort to pose a genuine threat to the player lol.

Ultimately this game pushed me to check in on BEWARE, which I am happy to see is still in active development :)

Earnestly clumsy in its story beats, lovingly realised w/ some frankly stunning artistic direction and craft, horny, kind of thin on anything substantive. The Frenchgaming Experience.
I must have played a demo for this at a convention in... 2015? 2016? It's been in the oven for a very long time, but I can't say the finished product particularly reflects that. Young Souls is a threadbare RPG beat-em-up that lacks much pizazz, aside from a few mechanical variances in its short runtime. Despite its armory of different weapon and tool types to choose from, you're typically pushed to choose whichever item in your inventory has the highest stat increment. Much appreciated the attempt at a homely town hub with a recurring set of characters, the Splatoon influence in its shop and upgrade design is unsubtle lol.

Completed in a sitting via couch co-op, which is nice!
Vanillaware are refusing to click "File > Export to... > PC" for Dragon's Crown, so this is the kind of ration that mercifully slides under my cell door once in a blue moon, I'm too hungry to complain.

Absolutely spellbound by this mod’s lofty creative and narrative ambitions. They’ve done a frankly brilliant job at realising a Central Asian post-Soviet locale in a world embittered by HL2’s Combine forces, ideologically split resistance forces and an MC with a hilariously unfortunate concussion. There’s this very keen eye for attention to detail by way of populating this campaign with an incredibly unique style of architecture and set-dressing. I don’t want to understate how blown away by the environment design I am - this feels like such a labour of love that deserves to be explored. punctuated by one of the most knockout game soundtracks I’ve heard in years - sometimes taking it upon itself to re-imagine classic Half Life songs for the setting, it’d be corny if it wasn’t honestly so hard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Ar8lKYsQA

There’s a bit more of a focus on realism here, which is intriguing enough for a HL2 game - does lend itself to its more down to earth downtrodden rebel unrest narrative focus, with cool little additions like tossing aside used health items as physics objects. Enemy fire seems to hit harder and you can’t just HEV Faceroll around the pitch like Gordie.

What stops Swelter from really falling into my all killer no filler stockade is in how much it feels to be buckling under the weight of the Source Hammer Editor, it’s somewhat telling to me how once you blossom your HL2 puzzle design beyond a few switches and physics see-saw puzzles the cracks start showing. Has its own overly-lengthy train section and HL2:E2 roadrip for good measure as well. Turning cranks to slowly open gates and the devious addition of those god damn wired electrical plugs. Strongly dislike the new weapons and how the enemies feel to shoot. Twitter lowbie VA quality plodding around a story that kind of bites. Ah well!!!

Very very charming little thing. Free, too. Dat’s what’s so magical about hl2 mods 🕊️

Marred by my very personal distaste of its handling of the subject matter and exacerbated by my slight gripes with this style of dialogue. I felt emotionally manipulated into fixing my "mistake" on the second attempt.
At the very least, I couldn't find an ill-meaning bone in Missed Messages' body, leaving its brief runtime to feel a little too out of its own depth to competently navigate its story and offer anything besides momentary catharsis. This is the type of thing that'll hit different people in wildly different ways - I can't say it accomplished what it clearly set out to do for me, but it failed in style and with heart.

This review will be mostly partial to the Level 50 (2.X) content that existed before the first Heavensward expansion dropped.

I completed Shadowbringers on release, and went into FFXIV hibernation until the Endwalker trailer got a few friends interested in giving the game a whirl. Eagerly jumped at the opportunity to make a new character on a preferred server, if only to see what impact the long-coming quality of life alterations had on the base game content.

As long as they pick the 'preferred server', newcomers receive a hefty exp bonus that I'd say nearly destroys any need even to do an unimportant sidequest or levelling duty finder. By the time the credits rolled, I already had two classes at level 50, which slaps hard. Considerable alterations were more recently made to the overall length of the 2.X quests - removing something like 18% of main story quests, and heavily abbreviating the ones that remain and adding the ability to use flying mounts in the old zones.

This all sounds really boring and granular, but honestly, it goes a long way into shortening what I'd essentially call the absolute worst content the game has to offer.
In general, it's not until you hit level 50 for your class' toolset will finally feel something close to 'fullness', allowing the player nigh-constant engagement with skill rotations and cooldowns.
It's also not until the post-credits content where the story gets promoted above... boilerplate? Characters become more clearly defined, and the story takes a turn into a fairly convincing political drama. That isn't to say admirable themes of growing into a legend while bringing the world together to heal the wounds caused by the calamity aren't present from the start, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The base game is A Realm Unseasoned, but I find it all worth the effort. Not only is the writing fun in a quaint enough way, but the foundation for great things to come has been made a whole lot more painless to trudge through. I don't envy the FFXIV team's task of adding ever more floors to the monolithic retrofitted nightmareskyscraper that is the game's life structure. The first content you see is the oldest and most naive, and you just have to be patient enough to watch the game grow into something spectacular as you progress through the MSQ. One thing I find particularly impressive is how well the game eases players in with evenly spaced tutorials and tools you have to play to unlock. Far too many live-service games in rotation nowadays do a terrible job at teaching the player anything in a way that isn't intensely overwhelming.

Dehydrated Osman, I fear, I regret 2 say 😔. Could be that playing it on default diff didn't push me hard enough to want to learn the mechanics more intimately but I would rather save that energy for a game isn't so bizarrely lethargic despite suggesting bombast in its sets and encounter design. Lots of vertical variety going on here but it's all of little consequence when you can walk through it like a spider's web. The Harumaru illustrations adorning the story sequences are an abso joy though, it's insane how bleeding-edge her work on this game continues being after a whole 25 years. The inspiring stuff whole careers are nourished by.

Wanted to give this game a shake out of sheer curiosity about contextualising the upcoming Dungeon Fighter Duel fighting game. There is a surprising amount of variety to the myriad playable classes, if the preview videos in the character creator screen are anything to go off - each subclass is replete with heavily stylised animations and unique playstyles, it seems genuinely a little sick when things get going. Not to mention I had to wonder how an "MMO beat em up" even worked, if at all. Most immediately striking is the sprite artstyle, as busy & clashing as a day at the races @ Maplestory or Gaia Online. Consider me a cow for this kind of tacky maximalism.

But like. Somehow I got autobanned halfway through making a character. Don't know what kind of cowboy anti-cheat they're running over there but my ass couldn't even leave the station lol - and it seems many of the Steam reviews are people raving about the same issue. Could it be because I chose the subclass the game beautifully and artfully named "Geniewiz"?? Hopefully the fighting game kicks you to the main menu the moment you pick your character from the roster for the authentique xperience!!!

Awe inspiring level design, both to explore and look at, but I can't help but find the core to be a little too rigid for me to really sink my teeth into.
Every time I think I make a discovery, I'm rewarded by a Challenge Complete notification, exp, an achievement or something. It's normal as hell as far as games go, but The World of Assassination feels choreographed to absolute distraction, there's almost something deflating about how all of your devious machinations have been accounted for in advance, and often in the most boring way. Agent 47 is an intrepid explorer going through thoroughly charted ground. A complex system of screenplays that adorn every map, and any time you deviate from the strict and pre-defined script, the AI snaps in half.

There's a lot of fun to be had in replaying levels, finding an impressive amount of secrets, unlocking and levelling up to keep the reptile brain happy, but as far as Hitman goes - I'll keep returning to Contracts and Blood Money.

I believe the first Bravely Default game to be localised for the west was an updated and fine-tuned version filled with rebalances, extra features and manicuring - and oh my god, I can't play this any more until they bring out the toolbox and go to fucking town in a similar fashion. Genuinely smacks of a low-AA tier JRPG (I Am Setsuna, Lost Sphear) in early access. Embarrassing load times, missing features present in the previous entries, microscopic font, UI delays and an all-around undercooked presentation. How do you accidentally make a cast THIS BLAND I don't get it!!!! Even the unlockable classes you can switch between feel weirdly "empty", stripped of identity and utility because of how overly balanced BD2 feels.