Snufkin: Memory of Moominvalley was everything I hoped it would be. It's a short game with the coziest of vibes showing a deep love for all the characters it features. I enjoyed every second I spent in this beautiful rendition of Moominvalley. This is my dream Moomin game, it's a wonderfully light adventure game that puts most of its effort into recreating the vibes and soul of the Moomin books - and while that doesn't make it extraordinary, it does make it the perfect type of comfort game to just lose yourself in. I felt calmer whenever I played this game. (Stay away from the Switch version though, Moominvally is best enjoyed with a framerate above 15fps!)

This game was so bland that it literally gave me an existential crisis. Not "figuratively" but "literally." In the real definition of the word. After I finished this game, I felt empty. This game inspired absolutely nothing in me. It was so generic. This should technically be a good game. The open world is pretty, the enemies look somewhat interesting, the combat is serviceable, and yet it left me feeling nothing. This game is the definition of a "modern AAA game". At least Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed games have interesting time periods to explore. This just feels like nothing. I can't name a single thing that happened or a single character aside from Aloy. I regret every moment I spent playing this game. Every time I see it in my "played", I get annoyed and want to delete my log because I'm embarrassed I ever played this AAA shlock to story completion. The only reason I don't remove it is to remind myself why I don't need to play every game. Especially the ones that win game of the year. Deathloop, Plague Tale, Horizon, I don't need to play these standard AAA games with the same kinds of stories and mechanics as every other game because the developers were told in college that "this is how you make games," and the writers are out-of-touch millennials.

Time is precious and never again will I waste it playing a game devoid of originality or identity like this. I played this in 2020 and it still haunts me to this day.

Honestly, I have no fucking idea what's going on in this one.

So, The English translation for this title is "King Kong Lives: Megaton Punch of Rage." I have no idea what movie this is connected to or what the story of this game is.

Honestly, the best way I could describe this game is it's like an 8-bit NES version of Ape Out in it's basic gameplay. You can walk around, you can punch or use a found ability, and you can jump. The movement and jumping is pretty solid and fun, and the punching is tight and works, the abilities I got my hands on worked well as well.

The game is pretty damn confusing, I had no idea what my goal was, just wandering around as a big ape and killing green blobs, helicopters, tanks, dragons, just random shit. Eventually, I found a boss fight. I have no idea wtf the boss was meant to be yet I enjoyed it, but anyways upon beating the boss I got a little cut scene where it seemed I was rescuing a female Kong. So I'm assuming the plot is you need to collect keys to eventually unlock and save ur ape wife. Unfortunately after beating this boss I got completely lost and scoured the whole world for progression, yet found nothing. Kinda just stuck in limbo, I called it.

So, in my head-canon, I'll just act like that was the final boss and I saved my ape wife, and the Kongs lived happily ever after.

For what I played, it's pretty awesome, definitely worth some time, and unironically if you like games like Ape Out, give this a look.

Licking the plate clean of the bland gruel that is Doom 3: BFG Edition. The Lost Mission was added in 2012, continuing the fine Doom tradition of adding one final helping of content well after the main course. The after dinner mint of Doom 3, as it were. Food analogy.

BFG Edition and Resurrection of Evil feel like mechanically and visually gutted versions of a better game, but The Lost Mission is action oriented by design and ends up being a whole lot better for it. Any attempt at steeping the player in darkness is excised, just run around and shoot demons. You get the super shotgun almost immediately and I might be going a bit crazy, but I swear it's better than it was in Resurrection of Evil. No hard evidence to substantiate that.

The Lost Mission is also ridiculously short, clocking in at just a little over an hour. That briskness is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, Lost Mission never overstays its welcome, on the other, it feels like it's getting going once you reach Hell. Although this does raise a question I hadn't yet considered posing in these reviews: why can't you run in Hell? I mean, yes, you can run, but you have to hold down L3 the entire time rather than having it on a toggle like you would on Mars. What's the logic behind this? It also didn't dawn on me until this late in my whole Doom 3 playthrough, but there's no subtitles in this game. Hard of hearing? Id don't care.

It's nice that the full Doom 3: BFG package ends on a high note, but I'm still walking away from all of this thinking it's at the low end of my overall ranking of Dooms, sitting right under Doom 2 and above Master Levels.

Doom 3: BFG Edition review
Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil review

immigrant stories in media are increasingly more common nowadays, which is a great thing, but that does mean that under less than careful hands, some of them can be a bit...undercooked. flavored like a psa, if you will. I was worried that is what we would get here

and we didn't! despite being a rather short game, it's layered and allows itself the narrative privilege of mess, good mess! the kind that serves a great dish. and very ironically, the pat kind of immigrant story I was worried about above is directly criticized in the story, lol

extremely well crafted and told, and I am so hungry rn