Having to crouch to fit into normal rooms as Lady Dimitrescu made me giggle, Heisenberg and Chris are cool but she's definitely the best part of this expansion and gives that Dead By Daylight-esque dumb fun of being this tall, powerful thing without getting bullied by people with 1000 hours in the game. Think her and Bayonetta would be friends irl. Was not expecting to get much from the Mercenaries stuff since I barely touched it in the base game but I'm really enjoying it and I can't imagine playing without this expansion stuff.

Shadows of rose kind of sucks though. It has Castle Dimitrescu again without the charm of the Dimitrescus and House Beneviento again with an ok twist before descending into just feeling silly from a horror perspective and a bit messy from a gameplay one.

If it wasn't for the mercenaries stuff I wouldn't recommend this, but that mercenaries stuff is really fun so I'm kind of 50/50. Probably best to wait for a sale.

(i've also still to check out the main campaign in third person which i may or may not idk i'll see)

It's pretty and pleasant to play but not much else really. Reminds me of wall art you'd get from IKEA or wherever, where it's artsy enough to be identified as such but not actually saying anything more than “live, laugh, love”. It works though. Everything's fine and I had a nice enough time going through it, it's just I'll never think about it again.

Thought about Celeste a bit while playing because they're both 2D Platformers about mental health, but this resonated with me way less despite being so grand and taking itself so seriously. Though I guess that's also kind of why it didn't resonate as well, the game's focused on a topic that should force it to be more honest and transparent but is taking itself entirely seriously and focuses all its efforts into making something very clean and appealing. It's about a personal topic but I don't feel like I know the person behind it at all.

Score feels harsh since the game was made under a tight budget by basically one guy but it's still being sold for money while you can download plenty other indie horror games for free which actually try stuff? There's nothing here that's original in any way and what is here just isn't good. It's a little creepy at the start but half an hour in you'll understand that all there is to be afraid of is a generic, long haired ghost woman and from there the game is left with a simplistic story about domestic violence via satanic ritual and gameplay where you just walk forward and deal with outlast stealth once or twice. I like that the game is plastered with stock photos though.

alcoholism is when you spawn a bunch of crushed_beer_can.obj in garry's mod

This is just F.E.A.R. but worse really. It's fine I guess, the low rating is mostly because I have no idea who it's for? The very meaty and sandbox-ish feeling to the shooting in the first game is replaced with something a lot more timid where you peak out, aim down sights and get a quick headshot to win. The horror stuff is also so in your face that it's not scary it's more irritating. I guess it was designed more for consoles but I don't see what about the first's gameplay wouldn't have worked on console.

It's also funny how much this contrasts with Monolith's other sequel from the year before, Condemned 2. That adds bears and clowns and stuff to ruin Condemned 1's quiet atmosphere but I like Condemned 2 as its own thing. This on the other hand just does F.E.A.R. again and I don't really care.

not even close to finishing this but I wanted to write something because there's a weird discrepancy here between the reviews and the overall rating and I think that's just because there isn't a lot to say about it if you like it. This is Doom 3 for people who hate Doom 3, it's a loud and excessive game (though in a very different way to the original Doom games) that you'll know whether you like or not in the first 10 minutes. It's fun, guns are punchy and it plays basically just as Brutal Doom with a more consistent aesthetic but as someone who's played a quite a few of these Boomer Shooters I found it kind of junk food-ish as I went through levels with my brain completely switched off just gunning through enemies. I don't really get anything from its aesthetic and outside of that it's just a really polished Boomer Shooter, which is fine, that's all it's trying to be but I think it's worth noting going in.

If you're curious about it play the first level and then see if you want to refund it or not because I guarantee you'll know based on that.