I'm revisiting New Vegas and doing my first new playthrough since game's release in 2010 which makes it time to check what those DLCs were all about. Ten hecking years later!

So far it's been a hit. In a way this DLC is Obsidian's school of doing Operation Anchorage while retaining the strengths of Fallout's systems. Dead Money also strips player off safety of accumulated equipment and directs them the path of linear exploration of a pre-nuclear world setting with very few distractions on the way, except it actually delivers on all fronts. The richness of New Vegas problem solving is still present, but opressiveness of environment and initial resource draught leads to a progression that's more coolheaded and cautious than usual. The combat never reaches the tightness of a proper survival horror title, but ghosts still make for some of the best encounters in the game by utilizing hard-hitting yet dodgeable projectiles as weapons and actually making Fallout's ridiculous limb destruction system matter in combat.

While the act of playing is pretty solid it's writing that manages to create real stakes here. Sierra Madre's history is confusing and bizarre, it's another case of great New Vegas world building through the mix of environmental storytelling, terminal notes from the past and character dialogue that gradually sheds light on the playstage . The cast of people you are unwillingly forced to cooperate with is, for the lack of better world, brilliantly broken, and exploring their pasts and problems is even more onerously interesting than the casino itself. It's all very engaging stuff and my only little issue would be just how ridiculously world-disrupting the technology of this DLC is which directly plays into antagonist motives, but it's not the first time you have to suspend your disbelief in Fallout.

Overall? High mark for a piece of downloadable content and starting Honest Hearts already made me wonder if other expansions in the pack manage to reach it.

Picked this game up randomly and wow this is a sweet surprise.

Over the years "puzzle platformer" became almost a derogatory moniker for a generic indie game, and yet I haven't seen a title that manages to merge both of these things in a satisfying punch. A usual game with this tag is either a side-scrolling puzzler where you occasionally have to jump over an obstacle, or a pure precision platformer that might require to consider your surroundings from time to time and map out a path through a level layout. Can't say these approaches aren't legit, but none of those got a balanced merger of genres going.

The surprising strength of Unravel 2 is that in 10 minutes it manages to introduce gameplay language with a set of mechanics that complements both puzzling and platforming, then lets you have a comfy adventure that constantly puts these mechanics to test. It's fine paced, and levels introduce new ideas to the mix without feeling gimmicky and superficial, breaking out of the base set of rules only once for the final gameplay sequence. It's not a hard game – the puzzles aren't complex and platforming doesn't require much skill, but you always do something interesting and fun. Moreso almost all reviews I saw online didn't bother to point out that there's a set of short challenge levels that nicely complement the main campaign by developing the ideas even further and giving more complex problems to solve if you do look for them. It's just a nice little package for both vibing and tryharding.

Still it missteps a little. While puzzle design nearly all is neat, platforming mostly feels good but shows the lack of controllable snap when it starts requiring more precision in those challenge levels. The game is gorgeous, but experience side is a little heavy handed and maybe it could be more of a hit if any kind of direct human involvement was replaced with smarter environmental storytelling. Still it's nothing compared to my disappointment in how much Unravel 2 came under people's radar. Maybe it's the positioning of cutesy "play with your mom or gf" game that harmed it, but I feel like if it was any other publisher there would be much more of a positive buzz around. Glad I discovered it though, it's a good time.

Oh and by the way the Switch version is excellent.

Yakuza 0 was neat, but it didn't make me fall in love with the series the way Like a Dragon did. The overwhelming humanity of its perspectives on people who fall between the cracks, the way it endorses positive male headspace and just such a nicely layered storytelling — I, like, genuinely believe this game in the future should be seen as one of the landmark points of the medium. It also launched my way through the entire series and I wish to write small reviews for every Yakuza once I catch up with all mainline games.

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1. Hammer is so fun to use and it complements the kit so well, it should just take the place of chainsaw as your main way to extract ammo from enemies in 3ternal if it ever gets made.

2. Armored barons clap; screechers really want you to take the enemy prioritization seriously; riot soldiers are cool; you love to hate cursed prowlers; stone imps take arbitrary weapon restrictions too far even if they are fun to fight; not even sure what was the point of demonic troopers. Overall new enemies take more Ws than Ls but Blood Angels are still the best TAG addition.

3. Traversal and platforming is at its most fun with addition of meathook grapple points.

4. Encounters are definitely less tight than in TAG1 but I wouldn't say it's that much less intense. Even a few normal fights managed to kick my ass and escalation encounters provided exactly the thrill I was looking for.

5. Marauders work because you can learn to be proactive with them. You can't be proactive Dark Lord and that's his greatest failing.

6. id environmental artists completely outdid themselves yet again like holy shit.

Pretty incredible how it always sets many attainable goals before the player and you don't need to read 250 pages long engineering manual to have a clear understanding how the pipeline output can be optimized and maximized at any given time.

Exploration is very emergent and neat, the combat is surprisingly capable for something you do 0.1% of the game and it's just pretty as heck.

Will revisit on a release and try to build something better organized than my first attempt at factorymaking.