Fight shadow creatures and purge the land of evil to save your sister.

I honestly don't really know why, but this one isn't it for me. I played through all of Automata, got every ending, and I was really invested the whole time. I enjoyed the story, the combat got a bit stale but still worked fine throughout, and I loved all the characters.
So I find myself asking..what changed?

In this one, the story really isn't grabbing me. I find myself just wanting it to be over, ignoring all the mostly abysmal side content, and beelining through the main events in the hopes that it improves. Sadly it hasn't been anything to write home about in my time playing. A couple interesting segments, sure, but I think it's been pretty dull besides that. Based on everyone's praise, I'm sure there's some huge reveal and a lot of great writing in the latter half, but..I am just not making it there right now. I at least need a long hiatus.

I like the characters a lot, the story is fine, but the combat. Easily the worst offender for me by a longshot. It is so incredibly mind-numbing that I genuinely can't continue putting myself through it anymore. I can't really say exactly why it doesn't feel good exactly, but- it is definitely up there with some of my least favorite feeling combat. At the very least you end up getting different weapon types to shake things up on the fly, but..man, I dunno. It just ain't it. That first handful of hours was really tough to slog through, combat wise. It likely doesn't help that you re-tread and re-fight the same enemies in the same areas for the entire duration (that I've played). It's just..so dry.
I'm talkin' oyster crackers and a shot of straight cinnamon, dry.

Another side note: I'm assuming the ability comes back, but I am not very content about getting fast travel, and then immediately losing it. Especially after spending more time walking to destinations, then even being in them. On the bright side, these maps are now burned into my brain permanently. :)

I'm unfortunately just not enjoying it enough to spend more time with it. I won't say the game is bad or anything like that, but it just isn't working for me personally. Like. When I only play something simply because I feel like I have to, it's time for me to stop playing it.
Maybe I'll pick it up again one day. Who knows.

Judging by the vast amounts of praise, it seems like the game is very worth trying out, even if it isn't for me. Grab it on sale and give it a go if you'd like.

Learn the details of the greatest bank robbery crew ever, over a game of cards.

PSA: I'm still kind of a poker beginner, so any high level players will probably have a much easier time with the game's AI. I barely knew how to play properly before starting this, so keep that in mind.

Honestly this was a really pleasant experience. Other people seem to be talking about the game falling flat, or the execution being poor, or the dialogue being annoying..but I for one enjoyed the whole game. I think the story and characters were charming, I enjoyed the cheery aesthetic and unique visuals, and the few tunes in the game were nice. It's a pretty short game though, and the story doesn't feel like it comes to any huge conclusion by the end. The narrative itself finishes in about 3 or 4 hours, and you could probably unlock all the unlockables in under 10, but you can keep playing poker with the characters indefinitely. They all have distinct personalities and tend to play in certain ways, which makes it more interesting and similar to..well.. actual poker with real people. Honestly I'll probably play a lot more of this to get more familiar with poker in real life.

There isn't much else to say about the game, really. I will add though, if you're only here for poker and don't care for the rest of the experience, just go play actual poker. Get some friends. Or go buy Balatro if you want a unique spin on poker itself, with no real story to it. It's a great game loved by a great many people, and it literally just came out. If you're at all interested in Sunshine Shuffle though, give it a chance. It made me happy, at least, and that's all that matters to me.

If you like poker, and want to witness a nice little story in visual novel format, pick it up. Costs as much as a pretty decent deck of cards, and gives you the same experience of shooting the shit with some friends over a card game.

Harness lightning and slaughter your way to dismantling the vampire agenda!

This game fucks. Like it fucks hard. The amount of raw power and masculinity pouring out of this title is staggeringly intoxicating. This is the kind of video game that fucks your mom, and makes you say thank you afterwards. ..before fucking you next. It's..extremely tough to describe, but I'll try to pair a few games that would mash into this one. God of War 2018 + Doom 2016 + Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. That sounds about right I think, and at the very least it seems quite inspired by those at points. Let's dive into the trenches here.

The way the levels work is very simple, but with a liiittttle bit of branching off at points. It reminds me of God of War 2018 in that the levels are quite linear, but there's some offshoots of the main path that have some bonus stuff for you. No sidequests or anything like that, just the classic "Go this way, but if you walk 15 steps that way first and break a barrier down, you'll find some extra loot". Even the environment traversal is very new God of War, with the specific action spots (cross gap here, climb this chain, push this thing) making an appearance. Worked fine for me, but I could see how some people might find it..unrewarding. Especially when you go out of your way just for 17 cents and a punch in the dick. I also thought the level design itself was..fine. In that same vein, the environments were cool at points, and boring at others. Nothing too crazy there to talk about.

Onto the story, it waasss..about what you'd expect from a vampire vs. cowboys narrative centered on late 1800s America. Angry guy who is super tough and always has a cheesy 1-liner at the ready has daddy issues, and the vampires are doin' evil stuff that has to be stopped. Also there's a sidekick who isn't as good as the main character, but is equally tough and cheesy, and probably also had daddy issues. There's various bits of lore you can collect to flesh things out a little bit, but not enough to make you interested in the world or anything. The weird B-Movie feeling story is just a backdrop to the core gameplay, afterall. And the core gameplay, ohhh man.

This is the part that fucks you and your mom. The penis, if you will. Embodying this badass Van Helsing-esque motherfucker is just the coolest shit ever to me. Like. Lever action rifle, revolver, some other goodies I won't spoil, and a massive fuck-off vampire killing fist that is charged with electricity? So goddamn awesome. To talk about the actual gameplay though, all of the guns for the most part work off of recharging ammo bars. This was an interesting take on ammo, and made all the weapons feel more like abilities than actual guns. Like imagine if Doom Eternal had recharging bars for every gun instead of set ammo. There's also steady progression for weapons and other abilities you can do, which are all equally as fucking awesome as the idea of beating the shit out of vampires with your bare hands was. One such early skill, the cannonball, might be one of my favorite abilities in gaming. Massive uppercut->Jump up to enemy->Punch into ground. I couldn't do that ability justice with words even if I wanted to. And I do want to. I just can't.

Expanding on the gameplay, there were a couple negatives I've got. Unfortunately. At times, the enemy density is absolutely suffocating. Especially towards the end of the game, they just start throwing several minibosses at you at once, and occasionally multiple waves. A couple times I found myself COD-Zombies training in fucking circles because I was being torn apart by vampires and dickheads on gatling guns at the same time. There is a parry and a projectile block ability, but for some really dumbass reason, you can't use it on shockwave attacks or bullets. Which means all those minibosses spamming shockwaves at you- can't be perfect blocked. Which is stupid as fuck. They also throw a lot of projectile enemies at you in general, which are never fun to deal with. Several encounters will start with you sprinting to the backline of the enemy to try and kill the ranged ones, while the other vampires beat the hell out of you. Final note, bullets do negligible damage for some reason, and it sucks. I originally wanted to build the character around just shooting, but there isn't really a good way to do that with how low the bullet damage is. Guns are usually situational tools to dissuade an enemy from doing something (except the shotgun, oh my god the damage).

I think that's about all I've got to say? I had a blast playing this, but I fucking LOVE cowboys and all that jazz. Not super into vampire stuff, but eh. This game still kicked ass imo. With more time, maybe a bigger budget, and not being developed at the same time as 2 other games planned to release in the same calendar year from the studio, I really think this could've been something excellent. Something everybody would've been talking about. Unfortunate then, that it seems to have flown under the radar. It's worth playing though.
AND I DIDN'T MENTION IT BUT THIS BITCH IS CO-OP!!!!

Fantastic game to pick up on sale, worth it for fans of what's on offer! Watch some gameplay!