i'm not gonna bother to write a full Fallout 1 Is Garbage And Here Is Why-style review for what is an overrated game so here are my notes:

- character creation is so easy to fuck up because of how unbalanced it is. you can make a run more excruciating if you dont put enough points in agility, meanwhile charisma and endurance is just fucking useless
- inventory management and item use is so clunky and restrictive. good luck finding the right spot to use your rope
- have fun being softlocked in small rooms because your dog npc blocks the doorway. have fun opening doors anyway if it doesn't face the screen
- side quests are not marked in your status screen. these side quests are way more important to get basically essential loot ( e.g. power armor). they are also really easy to miss
- the game is honestly so glitchy if this was a bethesda game there would be gamer rage. questimportant npcs can die if you like leave the room. its exacerbated on modern computers. i had frequent mouse locks
- the time limit is annoying. not big enough to be important but still an unneccessary source of unknown stress for new players. why is it there?
- i found it kinda annoying that new vegas only gives you new perks every 2 levels. then fallout 1 gives you perks every THREE. FUCKING THREE. with levelling up being so goddamn slow its fuckyoutown
- the tone is way more serious and less tongue in cheek. for me personally too serious, i really miss having elvis impersonators and wacky social experiments. then it turned out you get humor at random encounters? didnt hbomb fucking lambast fallout 3 for doing that??????
- backtracking is annoying because you can move the camera past your characters but if you click on a space characters wont go there. theyll onky go if your camera contains your characters
- you will straight up not know what item to use on a thing unless you read a guide. have fun alt-tabbing while figuring out how to disable the force-fields in the middle of a countdown. AND THEN THE SOLUTIONS DONT WORK ANYWAY BECAUSE FUCK YOU.

well fuck you too fallout 1. anyone who says this hasn't aged to others with way less free time and more choice in other good games should be shot in the head vegas-style to induce amnesia and then forced to figure out how this game works without guides. for all the rest who do respect their time, go to fallout new vegas.

For a long time, Sonic fans have long wondered why SEGA didn’t do the obvious thing and commission Sonic Mania 2 from its developers. Turns out, they did try to. However, the Mania developers decided they didn’t want to retread old ground by making a 2D Sonic game, and decided to take a bold, creative risk. I really want to applaud the developers for trying to make a fresh, new take on a 3D platformer that’s momentum based and also puts the emphasis on character movement. But I really can’t in good conscience recommend this game to anyone but the biggest fans of speedrunning, momentum-based games, pre-analog camera control platformers, and Sonic.

A big break of traditional game design Penny’s Big Breakaway does is breaking away from using the second stick as camera control. Instead, you use the stick to control Penny’s Yo-Yo. On paper, this should give you way more freedom of movement than just double-jumping or dashing or spinning via contextual or different button controls: for instance, you can quickly dash in a direction that’s not the one your left stick is heading towards, allowing you some handy emergency clutches. It’s basically a super-powered version of the advanced cap-jump trick you can do in Mario Odyssey, promoted to a main starring role.

However, it’s also that removal of camera control that screws up the hypothetical elegance of this new movement system. The camera automatically changes viewpoint in order to show what’s ahead. Again, on paper, it’s not bad (it makes hunting for collectible an actual challenge of reading the road in front of you ahead and anticipate where possible path deviations might lie). But your constantly changing viewpoint that’s out of your control makes it very hard to accurately move both sticks in the direction you want them to go.

These things make for a very steep difficulty curve, that will ensure that most players will not nail these gameplay mechanics by the time the credits roll. I’ve had a nice time of reaching 80% item completion on my first runthrough, but I definitely struggled in the later levels to keep a nice flow going. It was a harsh reminder that playing fast, momentum-based games like Sonic elegantly is a skill that takes a long time to master, and I do not fault most players to give up before that point. However, it’s unfortunate that Penny’s Big Breakaway lacks the precision itself to make the road to mastery a great experience for those who do want to engage in the challenge. Lots of people have already commented on the bugs which can seriously screw up your game flow, but even beyond that it lacks the clearly communicated nuance that a game like Celeste has in your movements and punishments that makes platformers like these tough but fair.

To wrap it up, I really wish I could give this game four stars. I’m a huge fan of the work of the developers, and their commitment to take the ambitious and revolutionary path, especially for what is essentially their first 3D game. I just hope that they’ll hone in on the unique potential of this game and polish it in their next project. Like Sonic the Hedgehog, whose first game showed potential that was only really realized in the sequels, Penny and Yo-Yo need to have a little more time to practice their skills in the wings.