Games like ALAN WAKE II aren't supposed to exist. Fraught development cycles, builds and ideas scrapped and started over and over. Stuck in a development loop. It's a recipe for disaster, no? The perfect storm to create a rushed, poorly executed mess that is a shadow of what the developers intended.

Remedy wasn't having any of that.

I always talk about how what I love most of all in art is when the artist takes a big swing. Leaves it all on the table. Remedy would settle for nothing less with the sequel to Alan Wake, telegraphing the swing like Babe Ruth stepping up to the plate and pointing beyond the outfield with 2019's Control. And I'm thrilled to say that they knocked it out of the park, just like they said they would.

ALAN WAKE II is an experience that requires all caps just to show how big it is. It is Remedy at its best, often over-the-top nonsensical but methodical and purposeful at the same time. There is gratuitous FMV, multiple albums' worth of original songs, a full Finnish short film that you can watch in the game, and probably more that I didn't even discover. It's flat out insane what Remedy poured into this game, and it pays off.

So few video games are confident enough to refuse to elaborate. There are bits of possible explanations as to what exactly is going on in Bright Falls and the Dark Place but nothing is ever definitive and is often contradictory. Thankfully Saga Anderson is here to keep us grounded and to provide the emotional core of the story. She quickly endears herself and I can't wait to see where her story goes from here. Saga is the perfect foil for the titular Alan Wake's absolutely unhinged side of the story. It goes to some delightfully bizarre places that you would never expect in such a dark tale as this.

The switch from action shooter to survival horror is perfect for the Alan Wake series. There are still the larger action setpieces you'd expect from Remedy but the quieter moments where you don't know what is around the next corner really amp up the tension more than the constant firefights of the first game. Those quiet exploratory parts are especially welcome because this game is absolutely gorgeous. There are so many stunning, offbeat locations in this game that had me wearing out the screenshot button on my controller. ALAN WAKE II has some of the best dramatic lighting I've ever seen in a game like this, fitting for the themes of the franchise. The first "overlap" section of the game in particular will be seared into my memory for a long time.

One of the central questions at the heart of ALAN WAKE II is this: is creating art worth it? With what it takes from us, what it gives, how it affects others? With the dark parts of us that it brings to light? "Don't write" say the walls, signs, and posters of the Dark Place. Thankfully Alan, and Remedy, and ourselves choose not to listen again and again.

I always knew that investors would be the ones to bring the devastation of the world!

It's always interesting to see people that mostly operate in other fields of art give a go to videogame making; I was not familiar with MrSuicideSheep previously to this —and by that I mean that I had never heard a single song from them channel until now—, but seeing as their channel serves more as a space for compilations of different electronic music, I wouldn't have expected this in a million years... especially considering Sheepy: A Short Adventure is an extremely enjoyable bite-sized platformer.

It's full of little things that make it a joy to go through; it's bursting with easter eggs and details, from collectables to silly stuff like reach mach speed while running on top of a spinning chair, little moments and extras both in the open and some actually pretty hidden and rewarding to reach, small additions to an already vibrant and sound world.

You know you got some stellar sound effects when it's satisfying to navigate through the menus to listen to the jingles. The OST itself is pretty good, I'm usually not a fan of cinematic-electro songs but in here they work quite well, especially during the major set-pieces, but what had me in awe was the sound design as a whole, a perfect accompaniment that envelops your ears and makes every single action rewarding, and every single mistake hurt a little bit more. It's an immaculate work, a achievement that goes hand in hand with one of the sweetest character pixel arts I've seen in a while.

With some exceptions, the zones and level themselves aren't anyhing crazy, they are mostly carried by some smaller details and unexpected effects, but other than that this isn't any different to other post-apocalyptic underground setting you could think off and no area really stuck in my mind except the final one, but then there's the characters. Sheepy, Patches and even the scattered critters are beautifully animated, buttery-smooth levels of animation that would be impressive as a standalone animation, but instead we get to play and interact with it.

Sheepy isn't a ground-breaking game nor it presents a novel idea, in fact for most of it's length it's a pretty average platformer with no particularly engaging challenges, but it presents new interesting mechanics as it goes on that make it incredibly fun to move around and every time I got to use them was amazing, it pulls off some pretty fun boss fights, it tells it's story with all the words it needs. The team has already shown desire to expand or explore new ideas and I'm so glad they are, because the potential is already palpable, but even if they weren't, as a stand-alone game Sheepy is so damn easy to like.

It’s a passion project made by people that clearly loved what they were doing during the whole development, and that's clear from the get-go. I'll be looking forward to see if the next adventure of this adorable little sheep happens and what that will have in store...

I gotta admit, making an entire DLC to have more of Snatcher and include funny adorable seals is the single best motivator I have ever seen… too bad they forgot to include them in an actually interesting package.

Despite the mixed to negative opinions I had heard, I really wanted to enjoy Seal the Deal, and specially everything that has to do with the newly introduced chapter. Cruises as an idea don’t get explored much in games for how fun they can actually be as a setting; call me a sucker for big-ass boats but what can I say, I do really like the idea of playing through big pools, giant malls, dining rooms and decks all in one place, that and some holiday vibes and you hit jackpot!

Through purely visual lenses, ‘’Artic Cruise’’ does succeed in that department; the vibes here are INMACULATE, nailing what a cruise should be and making it feel actually interconnected and pretty natural all things considered, and of course it’s really fun to see new faces and old friends and foes all together somewhere that isn’t the finale, and there are some funny as all hell interactions, especially with the Conductor and the Alpine Peaks inhabitants, and don’t even get me started with the seals that give the DLC half of its name. They can get a bit annoyingly cute at times, but they have some pretty nice and cute jokes to offer and bounce off Walrus Captain hilariously, I honestly wish he had a more dialogue through coms or at least more presence, ‘cause chatting with that grumpy seadog and seeing him react to his crew’s mess what a highlight of the entire thing.

Part of me wonders if that should have been the main focus of the main chapter, a big open level like Alpine Peaks, more focused on light exploration with some challenges limited to each of the cruise’s areas, or on the contrary, a more linear experience like Chapter 2 where you traverse the ship little by little; I’m not saying those ideas are the only ones that could have been done ore are ‘’definitive’’… but are certainly more focused than whatever we ended up getting.

What we have here are two different versions or what are basically fetch quests, and the other basically a mix of that with the last mission in Chapter 4… I do not like the last mission in chapter 4, and here they even re-used the same music and everything! I don’t think going around doing busy work or picking up stuff three different times was a particularly great idea in the first place, but it’s not like they did anything interesting with it: you just go around, picking up plates, broken shards or seals and bringing them to another place, and the only enjoyment that comes of from is the fun that comes from exploring the ship, one that rapidly fades when you noticed just how annoying it is to go through certain section different times or how the camera can get even more terrible than it did in the standalone game. The last mission is probably the most interesting since it changes things up the most layout wise, but it still doesn’t save it from being a backtracking fest or just simply uninteresting, and it just feels like an sped up finale for what it’s the shortest chapter in the game.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a chapter with only three missions (five if you count the other two extra time rift challenges, which are the most difficult in the game so far but still a bit underwhelming), but when in the base game you have 6 act chapters where you do something different in each, here having only three where you repeat the same dance in all of them feels… weird, not even lazy or dumb, just… really weird, and despite its brevity, it gets stale REAL quick.

When it comes to the Snatcher side of things, things get marginally better; it’s effectively remixed versions of past acts, and there are A TON of them, and they offer some cool rewards here and there, but it’s still pre-existing content with not that much changed, and unless you are a die hard fun of the game, I can’ imagine most people will get much out of it. Not a bad mode at all, it uses Snatcher in interesting ways and some of the extra challenges I got to play were really fun, but it’s still highly dependent on content that as already there and was already pretty good, but I needed to get a bit crazier or original to be something incredibly remarkable… new songs and the N64 costume are amazing tho.

Seal the Deal feels more like the cut content that didn’t make it into the full release being put out as it was left, which pains me to say ‘cause I don’t wanna ignore the effort that clearly went into it and the fun that can be found in some of its parts, but overall, I just get the sense of a huge missed opportunity, one that can’t get carried by contract making devils or funny lil’ sea mammals…

So I wrote this big long in depth review of Pentiment, and then accidentally hit some key that magically CLOSED THE MUTHAFUCKING REVIEW WINDOW WITHOUT ASKING ME TO SAVE AND LOST ALL MY WORK. Sigh.....

So after much swearing and yelling, Ill just say that Pentiment has a really great story, well written and impeccably researched. The artwork and music are exquisite too. But the simplistic and boring gameplay mechanics definitely mar the experience, and made going back to replay the game again an unappealing prospect. If the game didn't rely so heavily on pure dialogue, so as to make 90% of the game a continuous mashing of the X button to get through dialogue sections, it would be a greatly improved experience. I also thought the big reveal at the end was rather weak and not very believable either. Nevertheless, the story and worldbuilding are amazing, and definitely makes it an easy recommendation, at least as a one time playthrough.