Holy shit guys, they did it. They gave Bastion a hat.

Overwatch 2 might be the saddest game I've ever played. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty fun - but it's not new. It's literally Overwatch 1 with some (mostly good) balance changes, three new heroes and a new game mode.

Now if you'd be very bored, you could go to my profile and look for my rating of Overwatch 1 and see that it's a 3/5. So how come OV 2 has a lower rating if it's the same game? The answer is simple - Battle Pass. Are you seriously telling me, that they want me to pay $ for a bunch of grafitis and voice lines? Or in other words shit I don't even want for free? Well at least it's not like I HAVE to buy the pass, I could just get some in-game currency and buy whatever I want, right?

No.

Do you guys remember that tiny little thing from the first game called loot boxes? Well guess what - our friends at Activision Blizzard finally realized that this kind of system is toxic as hell and decided to get rid of it. I'll give you a quick reminder of how it worked in the first game. Each time you leveled up you got one free loot box which would give you some random stuff. Of course, if you were a moron, you could've bought more loot boxes for money. Loot boxes sometimes also dropped coins for which you could've bought items of your choice.

Now you might be wondering what do you get for playing games in OV2. Well the answer is simple - aside from the free bullshit from the pass, you get nothing. So basically a free to play player has literally no way to express themsleves with any of the cosmetics. The only way to get what you want is to spend money on the in-game currency. Or grind. Because there is ONE way to get the currency for free - weekly challanges. Now if you complete them all you get 60 overwatch coins or whatever this shit is called. Now if you go to the store and look at the prices, you might notice that the MOST BASIC SKIN for each character costs 300 of it. For a WEEK of playing you get fucking 20% of the MOST BASIC SKIN for a character of your choosing. In other words, you need to grind for 5 WEEKS to get a MOST BASIC SKIN.

I think this perfectly sums up what Overwatch 2 really is - the last try from blizzard to squeeze some money from players of an otherwise dying game. Remember the co-op mode? They never intended to realease it now. It was just an excuse to announce this "game" and redirect the negative attention the studio was and still is getting.

Here's what's gonna happen next. In a couple of weeks they will realse The Revenge of Junkenstein (or whatever it's called in English) for the billionth time, people will realise that this the same game, the queues will disappear, the queue times for games will get long as fuck again, they will release the PvE which will attract some players again, but after that the game will go under even more than OV1 did.

And the cherry on top is the 81 Metascore for this piece of shit. This "game" is everything wrong with this industry and it should've never fucking existed.

Go play some indie games instead.

I don't know who came up with the idea of these f*g turrets, but congratulations - you've successfully made me ragequit, uninstall and most likely never come back to this game again.
Comparing this game to A Link Between Worlds, which I absolutely love, it’s very unwelcoming. You appear on some island literally out of nowhere, you have zero sense of what your goal is, everything (even your inventory) is in some unknown language, and one kind of collectables are pieces of a manual, containing info on how to do something you've learned by yourself by now (they are also mostly in a weird language).
What I hate about the gameplay is that I generally found myself just walking around the map looking for a space in a wall I overlooked somewhere. What's funny is that some of the areas crucial to progress are hidden the same way as those where you can only find some collectables. There was a moment where I found a key to some house, and only after I went there for the second time, I realised that there was a whole in the wall, through which I could go. I also hate how enemies always respawn after you return to an area, but it's pretty much standard nowadays, so I guess it's just a me problem. The basis for combat are alright, but they don't work me when you fight a group of enemies (which is about 80% of the time). Basically you can only target one enemy at a time, and to target another one you have to leave that target mode and get to it again, which does not guarantee targeting the enemy you want either way. And it's especially annoying when there are two or more turrets present.
When I went into this game I expected Link Between Worlds type of game, but what I got was shitty Dark Souls with just similar aesthetics. No interesting puzzles or dungeons, just boring combat and exploration based on walking to every wall and possible space between rocks, trees, etc.
Also I don't know if it's just my monitor, but I can't see shit when there is any kind of a shadow or a dark area.

An original and interesting world, multi-layered characters, investing story and setting, choices which impact the game and most importantly exceptional writing. At times I was more invested in this game than in any other piece of media I engaged with in recent memory. It actually felt like I was forging my own path within the difficult world of the game, based off the principles and ideals I (Brante) acquired and I absoulutely loved that. What I love even more is how open-minded the game is if you decide to take a more questionable path or make an immoral choice - it doesn't judge you, but instead just alters the narrative in a way that would be respectful of your choices.

Long story short - this would have been the best game I've played this year. But then I tried to replay it.

It seriously baffles me how a game with so many possible outcomes can have such a fucked up save system. In the final chapter of the game I had 3 different paths to choose from. I initially went with one of them and finished the game. Then to play through the other two, I had to play through the ENTIRE CHAPTER twice as well. For some reason (presumably because it could make farming achievements too easy? but I honestly have no fucking clue) the game overwrites your save whenever a new event starts and then if you want to make other choices you can only do that by replaying the entire chapter from the start. Manual saves would easily fix the entire issue, so I don't know why the devs went for such a stupid choice. I would honestly replay the game a couple of times if I didn't have to sit through all of this stuff. There is so much content in it, but it somehow feels like the devs don't care enough to give you access to it.

Still, if you only do one playthrough (which is even somewhat thematically fitting - you know, every person has one life etc.) the game is definitely worth your attention - even with the lacking design. It's thought-provoking, it's original, it's very well-written and it's a very good game / interactive book.

If you're looking for a good noir detective game with antropomorphic animals play something like Chicken Police. This is essentially a glorified visual novel which just happens to have a detective as the main character.

(minor spoilers)

It's also not really a mystery game either. While the main character is presented with a case to solve, it never really does get solved in a fulfilling fashion. I didn't mind that at all but I can defiinitely see why people are disappointed by the final chapter of the game. I would even say it does feel a bit underbaked when compared to the rest of the game. However, I do not believe it is a reason to just disregard the game as a whole. The story takes a turn in Chapter 3 (out of five), so by the time it reaches conclusion the player should already embrace that the conclusion might not be what they initially anticipated.

A lot of the criticism also comes from the fact that the relationship between Howard (the main character) and Renee (side character) which begins to form at the end chapter 1 just kind of stops existing after chapter 3. Funnily enough the writers of the game kind of dug themselves into a hole in that aspect. Some of the dialogue options seem to assume that you will like Renee right after the first conversation with her (there is even an achievement for "trusting her right away") and the character is definitely written in a way to make it the case for many of the players. Howard frequently mentions her in his thoughts as well, which sort of gives the impression the writers REALLY want you to connect with that characters for ultimately little to no payoff. I personally didn't fall for it, as aside from a common goal I didn't really see a reason to fully trust her, which I guess influenced my view of the entire game as well.

(major spoilers)

From all the chapters in the game, the first two are the least memorable to me. Aside from the plot twist at the end of the first one and maybe the conversation with Florence in the second one there isn't really anything all that interesting in there. Then the hypnotysing final sequence of chapter 3 happens (and unfortunately ends with Anatoly getting killed off for some shit-tier shock value), followed by a transition to the best location in the game, filled with characters who actually form some kind of community instead of randos on the street or the same newspaper salesman reused for a "comedic" effect. It actually felt like I should get to know these guys, because maybe I'll have to stay there for a while. That of course doesn't happen, but hey - that's life. You can't stay on the playground forever and your parents don't really care if you'll not see the kids you were playing with for the rest of your life. The same exact rethoric can be applied to Renee, except the player actually witnesses the choices she has to make afterwards. Which takes me back to what I said earlier - I think the negative voices come mosty from people who feel cheated by the story - by Howard's death, by Renee's choice to work with Clarissa, by the close to non-existing resolution of the case. And again - it's fine if they do. But I do believe that it's worth acknowledging that the creators of the game made a gamble. They took a concept that basically writes itself and decided to experiment with it. Not only with the story itself, but also with the way it's told. Maybe the quality is not fully up there, maybe the script could use some tweaks here and there, but I will take this story over another generic noir mumbo-jumbo any day of the week.

Also the pixelart in this game is gorgeous. The water reflections, the sun setting down - just beautiful stuff.

It starts off strong with a cool premise, somewhat relatable protagonists (socially anxious cynics), an interesting setting and great performances (which thankfully stay consistent until the very end). Unfortunately it becomes clear very quickly that this game needed a lot more polish before coming out.

First of all, the performance is not good for a game of this "caliber". I played it on the Steam Deck and despite it being verified I was met with frequent audio issues (more specifically Milo and Lola's dialogue playing at lower volume than everything else) as well as FPS drops (when capped at 40...). Bicker, which is like an in-game social medium you can open by pressing select didn't work at all, seemingly because the game didn't recognise the deck as a controller.

Gameplay-wise, the devs clearly wanted Afterparty to resemble Oxenfree as much as possible, but they completely overlooked some aspects that weren't relevant in their first game. For example NPCs - there are tons of them in this game, but they NEVER talk. You literally walk among hundreds of people / demons in complete silence - even the main characters are silent for like half the fucking game, seemingly just running out of stuff to talk about (and they are supposed to be lifelong BFFs). To be fair, if I had to walk through these long-ass levels with hardly any soundtrack or ability to interact with anything I would quickly run out of shit to talk about as well - hell has actually never before been this boring. There are a ccouple of locations in this game, but they are all equally boring and soulless. Even the demons all look the same. There is that one side-character demon named Fela - he has a VA and is somewhat involved in the main plot, but he looks exactly like one of ~3 generic demon types present throughout the game.

The writing is (for the most part) passable. If it comes to jokes hardly any of them landed for me. There's plenty of american deafultism - demons making jokes about cbs, "foreigners" just speaking English with an accent instead of their native languages (which would actually make a good joke if you put a minimal amount of thought into your worldbuilding - something the devs frequently brush off in the game by breaking the fourth wall and essentially saying that nobody cares about that). Story-wise it's decent. The idea of outdrinking Satan to get out of hell hardly makes any sense, but it's not really supposed to so it's fine. There's a nice twist at the end and the player is met with a choice - an interesting one, without an obvious answer unlike in for example Life is Strange, so that's nice. What's not nice is the game autosaving right after making the choice, essentially preventing the player from seeing other endings, but I guess it wasn't like I wanted to play any more of this at that point so get fucking owned.

I mentioned that the main characters are initially likeable, but they get more and more infuriating as time goes on. I blame the dialogue options for that as we only get two instead of three like in Oxenfree (unless you drink, which gives you an additional option, that most of the time is so stupid that it's really a non-option). The options themselves more often than not are almost the exact same and / or stuff I just didn't want to say. You can always just choose not to say anything, but the time it takes for the game to acknowledge it is so fucking long even the characters you talk to shut up before you do, seemingly begging you to say something. Oxenfree had an achivement for stayng silent the entire game, Afterparty passively discourages it, making itself even more sloggish than it already is. But to be fair, it's not like Milo and Lola themselves are particularly interesting - character-wise they're alright, but their relationship is subpar to pretty much any duo involving Alex in Oxenfree. Most of the time I would just pick a "leave him / her alone demon!!!" dialogue option instead of a "join the demon and laugh at him / her" one and choose to believe this is how friendships work.

In general the game kind of feels like a Netflix movie (which isn't that surprising, as Netflix actually owns Nights School). Quality-wise I would be willing to compare it to someting like "To All the Boys I've Loved Before", but all the flaws in gameplay and design place it closer to "Red Notice". I originally planned to finish this in 2-3 days, but it took a whole week so yeah...

The enviromental storytelling is pretty cool. Soundtrack and graphics are fine as well. But the gameplay is terrible. For a game focused on taking pictures, reaching different spots to get the most interesting angles the movement is horrible. You can barely get off the ground when you jump and touching pretty much anything generates a large amount of friction. This makes looking for the things you're supposed to shoot extremely unfun, especially since many of the items are not very clear and it can take a while to find out what the devs actually want from you. Clicking escape to access the list is also pretty annoying. I think a better solution for this would be to show the list whenever you press tab or something like that.

I could've finished dozens of games from my backlog, watched hundreds of movies or TV show episodes, but instead I got talked into downloading this game by a friend and drowned thousands of hours in it.
Don't do this to yourself. Just don't. There will be moments when you'll enjoy it, but it's simply not worth it considering the unfairness of the game, Riot's anti-consumer practices, the overloaded kits of new champions, creative downfall of their designs and skins, the total of two maps and three game modes (one of which is a rotation of another three), uninteresting events, smurfs, as well as toxicity and idiotism of other players you have no choice but to put up with.
Also I've never in my life fought with my friends as much as when playing this. which perfectly shows that the reason for neverending toxicity is for the most part just the game - not necessarily the players.

The production value of this game is pretty insane. All the dialogue is dubbed (even monologues), the artstyle is gorgeous, cutscenes are well-animated, and the soundtrack is very climatic. The game has many jokes, most of which I found to be very funny, and the whole premise of "noir but animals" is executed extremely well.
The story however isn't anything to write home about. It's pretty much exactly what you would expect from an average noir detective movie, including all the character types, clichés and dumb plot twists. But again, the animal aspect saves it a little bit.
On the gameplay end it's pretty much an average point and click, except it relies more on dialogue, interrogations and asking questinos, than on puzzles. Pretty much evey character and every piece of information on them or the case are accessible in your notebook, which is very well-thought. The way you gather it is not as good though. Oftentimes I wasn't sure where to go, or who to talk to, because once I stopped talking to somebody nothing happened, and I got lost for a short while. I also had some issue with choosing the right question to ask during interrogations, because many of them sounded pretty much the same.
Overall I would recommend this game if you're looking for something easy to realx to for ~two evenings. It's not bad, but it could've been better, or in other words, it does its job, but not much besides that.

This is generally a VERY good and VERY fun game with great gameplay loop and surprisingly well-made narrative, but it falls flat in too many details for me to give it 4 stars.

First of all the tutorial is bad. It's boring and it doesn't explain enough of the gameplay structure. While not getting tutorials on how and against whom you should use particular weapons adds a little bit to the already high difficulty of the game (and I guess the feeling of being a rollerdrome rookie), it also discouraged the usage of these weapons for me (namely the granade launcher and the laser thingy). For the shotgun there was at least a prompt on the screen telling me when to push the trigger, but for the other two there is nothing. I still don't know how to use the laser, and I only started using the granade launcher because the side uests required it. The real issue however is the lack of tutorials for the tricks. Every level requires pulling off at least one, but they don't tell you how. All it says is -> -> X , but I have no idea what the fuck this means. No matter how many different ways I try to input this, it just doesn't work. If there was like a training stadium where you can just roam around and try tricks out MAYBE I could figure it out, but for some reason the devs didn't think of it, even though this type of game practically begs for it. It would also help with learning how to use the weapons as I would not need to do it during the levels.

The "boss fights" are a joke. The two times they appear (and why only two? it feels like the devs ran out of either money or creativity) it's basically just the same, shittily designed boss (which prompts me to believe it was actually creativity). They aren't even that hard, mostly just annoying and uninspired - if you miss the leg platform you are basically doomed to be damaged (and possibly die) by the close-to-undodgable stomping attack. Aside from that it's just a standard level but witout ramps and a big robot spawning landmines from time to time. My question however is - why the fuck do I need to play through this shit every time I redo the level? You can skip the narrative parts, why can't you skip the bosses? Initially I was annoyed this because even if you complete a side quest you actually have to play through the whole level. Only later did I find out, that you can also just die, because after that the done quests remain that way as well. Why? Why can't I just leave instead? In boss fights of course dying and saving progress is not an option, as you only have the option to either try again or leave the level.

I do have some more complaints (I once fell of the map, the auto-movement is a questionable choice, it's basically unplayable on the keyboard) but I don't want to be that negative as the game is really good. It's just not the flawless masterpiece some people claim it to be.