American Mcgee's Alice may be my favorite adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. In terms of writing and atmosphere, it's certainly the cream of the crop. What Rouge Entertainment accomplished on the Quake 3 engine, of all things, is nothing short of incredible. I genuinely think when it comes to translating an Art style with the tech they had, they couldn't have done better. The dark, twisted atmosphere is killer and the soundtrack unmatched. The voice acting is also one of the best I have ever heard, with Sussie Bran as Alice and Roger Jackson as the cheshire cat beeing pitch perfect. I could honestly listen to them banter for ages. Its all wonderful, except for the gameplay. That is an entirely different can of worms.

Alice suffers what I like to call "second half dropoff syndrome". An unfortunate decease many, many games up until fairly recently have suffered from. Basically the first half is excellent, falls right into what its gameplay limitation are capable of, but then you hit the midway point. From then on it becomes awful, with bullshit enemies, instant death pits and levels that stretch on for way too long. For Alice, that point is about when you reach the level Mirror Image, the mad hatters' domain. The platforming turns to shit and most of the weapons become useless. The ice wand is already crazy overpowered, but introducing the jabberwocky's eye staff makes even that redounded. It kills all the challenge, and now the only threats are instant death pits. Unlucky then that Alice has tons of enemies who's single job it is to push you off narrow pathways. Great. I don't exactly think we needed that in a game where jumping isn't great to begin with. I probably shouldn't be surprised about those issues, considering American Mcgee used to work at Id software and many of Alice's exact issues can be found in Id's early catalog. The storm on the red queen's castle was a slog, combining all those issues. The atmosphere still fucks, but it's the point where I wouldn't blame anyone for just watching a Let's play instead.

I still recommend you check out Alice in any way you see fit because I think it's one of the defining pieces of Video Game art from the early 2000s, that sadly never got the spotlight it deserved. On the bright side, EA pretty much stopped giving a shit about the series and now just sells its sequel completely DRM free. So it's super easy to mod the original into the sequel, since it was originally sold as a bonus DLC remaster for Alice: Madness Returns. You can then just access it through the main menu of Madness Returns. So fuck EA and pirate the fuck out of their games. Rise up, Goth Gamer Nation.

worth noting I have the original We Love Katamari at 4.5 here, not that I'm docking it any points for being more or less the same game (like We Love Katamari isn't just Damacy again anyways); but I can't really perceive any proper reason to play this over the PS2 release; feels pretty identical with little graphical or mechanical upswing. felt like a slightly more tiring experience this time too?
I could be wrong, but either way, as previously expressed, more or less the platonic ideal of a video game. love it all the same.

I have grown more attached to Shadowheart than I have to most people in my actual life and the fact that she's not real depresses me immensely.

Oh, the game? It's great!

The amount of ambition on display from Larian Studios here is absolutely staggering, to the point that it's actually surprising just how much of it pays off. The characters are all incredibly interesting, well-rounded and fantastically written and voice-acted. The gameplay kept me engaged for the most part, and despite my general dislike of turn-based action it was pretty easy for me to get to grips with it.

The story is great and there's enough side-quests off the beaten path that I feel like BG3 is well worth paying full price for. I went through the game at a fairly brisk pace and clocked up 85 hours in the end. If you were willing to explore different ways of playing the game (including the unique Dark Urge path) then you could easily lose hundreds of hours to it.

Sadly a few issues prevented me from giving BG3 full marks. The game's third act can be very overwhelming at first, and it can be difficult to know what to do and where to go without losing certain content. Some side quests feel unfinished, like Larian ran out of time before they could flesh them out properly. That's not to mention that a lot of the stories of your fellow companions, so beautifully developed in the first two acts, tend to fizzle out. Once you complete their personal quests they stop being the fully fleshed out characters they were and end up just being sorta... there.

There were also a few annoying bugs riddled throughout; characters sometimes being unable to jump, textures not loading properly or being stretchy, enemies taking almost a full minute to decide what they wanted to do in a turn. Nothing game-breaking but they added up.

I don't regret any of the time I spent playing this - in fact, as someone with absolutely no prior experience with anything D&D-related this has actually made me want to get into it more, whether that's through other video games or actually playing it with other people. Of course, for that I actually need to find some friends first...

P.S. I don’t care if the ‘Party Limit Begone’ mod is ‘cheating’, nothing feels better than running around the city with my merry band of ten adventurers. The easier combat is secondary to not having to miss out on any companion-specific dialogue with NPCs.

And to think, I thought I was done with Celeste this month. I heard this got released yesterday, and it's free, so I had to go and play it. For only being made in a week, this is very impressive. Celeste transitions surprisingly well into 3D. You lose your upward dash in this game but everything else is here. Yes even your grab which I stupidly didn't realize was a thing until 2/3rds into my playthrough. Once I did, it definitely clicked way more since I was infinitely wall-jumping to do stuff before I learned grabbing was part of her moveset. I really like the implementation of the camera and it having a big part with the various puzzles. The early 3D atmosphere was also really nice. It never got crazy difficult like Celeste but what was here was fun. It's only like an hour long so there really isn't much content, but this could be a good stepping stone into something greater. Either way, fun game..just wish it was longer.

Also, I got all 30 strawberries, that last cassette tape under Badeline was definitely the hardest part of the game but it was very cool.

Treating the 2 parts of Another Code: Recollection as one game, it is an absolutely incredible story to experience and a decently fun game to play. the gameplay is pretty simple and is mainly just running around solving puzzle after puzzle, but the story is what really makes this game shine. While near the ends of both parts there can be some high stakes and exciting moments, for the most part its very calm, slow, and mundane, but in the best way possible. The game takes a lot of time to really make you understand Ashley's point of view on her situation, and what is going on in her life. It is very interesting to watch the subtle differences in how she acts over the course of the 2 years the story takes place over. Watching such a young kid go through such hard situations was really heartbreaking to watch at times, and it made progressing through and solving the mysteries in Ashley's life so much more satisfying. Ashley is not the only character in this game however, the game has plenty of fully realized and charming characters, many of which you'll never forget by the end of your play-through. The calm nature of the game really helps to bring out the personalities of each character, and makes them much easier to relate to. Every character feels like a human, rather than a plot device. The game is also not afraid to touch on difficult subjects, though it never makes them its entire focus. Despite some occasionally awkward voice acting and lower budget (but stylized) graphics, this is one of the few games I've played that has successfully made me tear up, and every bit of occasionally dull gameplay was fully worth playing through to get to the end. If your a fan of storytelling in video games, id definitely recommend giving this game a try.