Point'n'Clicks lost me for a while in late 90s, partly because they started out following the polygonal 3D trend and of course other priorities in early adulthood. Syberia wouldn't have caught my attention when it was released in 2002, but since my return to the genre and a free giveaway of Syberia Part 1 and 2 for PC from Gog later, I've learned it isn't all that bad after all and I picked up the three games on Switch to complete.

Of course I could have finished Syberia on my Laptop easily and that was the plan anyway, having just bought the additional part 3 on sale for Switch. Having the chance to get the combined parts 1 and 2 on sale for about two Euros (so look for these games on a discount!) lead to the decision to complete any Syberia part on my recently favourite bed time device and that has some pro's and con's actually.

But enough bragging, designed by acclaimed and sadly now deceased comic book artist Benoît Sokal Syberia draws a lot from the integral design putting sort of a steampunk fairytale into an antiquated vision of modern Europe and Russia. That robots are rather called Automatons should tell quite a bit about the attention to detail. American lawyer Kate Walker has to learn as fast it's not just a regular toy factory she's helping to buy as she finds out the owner passed away, though there's a lost inheritant she's got to find so she can close that bloody deal.

The characters are 3D which would usually be a turn off for me, but the textures merge well enough with the beautiful yet digital 2D backdrops and as the decent story unfolds, I'm hooked by the atmosphere. As soon as finding an automaton compagnon that certainly could be seen as a steampunk C-3PO equivalent and starting into the adventure on a clockwork train the game fully got me.

If it wasn't for some minor flaws to add up though. I've been playing into third chapter on PC and mouse controls were fine, except for hotspots into new scenes that sometimes were hard to find or even hard to tell from each other. Cost me some time, because I just didn't see there's another scene in the factory to get the needed puzzle going.
On the other hand, there have been plenty of dead end hot spots that never would get relevant throughout the game. I miss exploring those details even if it's just for some random information instead of finding out it's just a useless action. The Switch version cut down on that massively, increasing the impression of sterile scenery though, that you just pass to waste time. Switch version also seems to omit at least one small chunk of dialogue that, even though it did not consist of lots of relevant information, helped to create an image of what's going on in that little french place.

Since I did not read the PC instructions properly, hence didn't know double clicking the exit makes you run, walking around was rather slow, especially when you bounce around to find your information. And it's not you don't have to. The moment you're tired of clicking the same dialogue triggers over and over, you're gonna find out maybe that one time it's crucial to be persistent.

On Nintendo Switch you move through the screens with your left stick, probably reminding of Monkey Island's fourth installment or Grim Fandango, coming with the same disadvantages more or less. There's a "run" button I kept constantly pressing to work on a decent speed. But it seems the game wasn't actually designed for these type of controls. Further into the game it gets sloppier, getting stuck at design elements or unlocking secret clipping errors nobody expected. Worst of all, changing one scene into another, there's a twist in direction, so if you keep pushing the stick that way, whoops, you're back where you just came from. It's just frustrating after a while.

Having said that, it's probably good the game doesn't rely so much on using items and except for few, there's not much need to be very precise. Overall, I've seen Point'n'Click ports being way worse than Syberia.

There's plenty of dialogue to work through and being German, I tried the localized dub on Switch, but returned to the superior English dub I knew from PC swiftly. They did a great job on that and, having a well developed dubbing culture in Germany, it surprised me how unemotional the characters spoke in the German version. It's still good you can skip the dialogue though, not only if you hear it again, but also if you read the subs and just want to finally pass.

It confused me a little, that after a while the great atmospheric soundtrack got repetitive too much, so I put on a Spotify playlist and turned the in-game music volume down. Call me barbaric, but I've spent enough time finding the last clue in some cases, that I needed some change.

That I did only need to look up minor details in a walkthrough that I basically knew but couldn't locate (actually only three situations connected to technical issues I had with the PC version) can be seen good or bad. The puzzles are not insane and you could say it's designed well enough to let you pass on your own. But if you're used to ace your adventure anyway, you might find Syberia a bit on the easy side, having to find just what you're told to mostly.

It's about the experience in the end and there's enough tension while the story unfolds. That's also what let's me endure the procedure. On the plus side, it's more grown up content putting the female protagonist on a journey from the filthy capitalist US law firm on the tracks of an infantile mastermind being lost in the remains of communist Russia cornered by a connection home via mobile phone, it's 2002, remember? Not all calls are useless. Some help solving a puzzle and some the character development leading to a final decision right on peak of the action. With that kind of cliffhanger, you should at least be prepared with Syberia 2 to continue the trip. Part 3, well that's another decision to be worked out in a review.

Anyway, if you're willing to accept some tech flaws on their own, both PC and Nintendo Switch versions of Syberia are a good addition to your growing Point'n'Click collection. Even being first released a while back, the Switch version could easily cut away the save slots and rely on the last autosave, cause it's well enough designed to not have you die or get stuck in a dead end at all. Sure, there are better games, the first two Broken Sword issues come to mind, but that kinda story in that particular environment with lots of dubbed dialogue and cut scenes appears to be quite rare. That was a lot of chitchat for saying "you can find it cheap enough to be entertained if you're into the genre."

Would you like to read more of my backloggd adventure reviews?
Syberia II
Syberia 3
One Night Stand
The Little Acre
The Wardrobe - Even Better Edition

Unlike for my review of Syberia part 1, I did not play the PC version before switching to Switch. On Nintendo's hybrid console though, Syberia 2 feels very consistent. It looks a tad more polished, but still within that Playstation 2 era look including characters still moving like marionettes. And sure, you'll get stuck at the occasional scenery corner just like before. The English dub is still very good and as a plus, now dialogue options are deleted when used. On the other hand some scenes are more complex, increasing loading time and sometimes can get confusing, especially when you miss a passage due to the lack of hotspots, as some paths are well hidden in the design or orientation is obstructed by perspectives.

Syberia Part 1 managed to end the personal development of our protagonist but left the physical adventure open. What's with the Youkols and their mammoths? We still didn't find out for sure, if they exist. Understanding the decision of focus for the first volume, that in theory could have ended that way, there was expectation built up to investigate clues and legends found on the journey so far.

Kate Walker rather is at service this time, to help out a whole bunch of characters while heading towards Syberia. It's a good mix between revisiting elements from the first game and exploring new territories, whilst directly continuing the story. Actually, with Kate's life decisions basically being out of the way, there's more space to expand puzzles and dive a lot deeper into adventurous situations.

That could work out with less flaws for sure, but who did expect that after playing the first one? There's some nice storytelling and graphical design plus the puzzles are more interesting. That's what counts here. If you got into the first, there's no way to skip Syberia 2.

You're welcome to read more of my backloggd adventure reviews for games like:
Syberia 3
Kathy Rain
Thimbleweed Park
Stilstand
Sam & Max Hit The Road

Actually, I understand if you played the first two parts of Syberia on PC, you will be as much disappointed with the controls as I've been with Monkey Island 4. Playing on Switch though, I've just been asking why the heck they made stick controls worse than they had been. After all, I got used to the gameplay as it was and now, adapting sort of twin stick controls with the right camera stick also working to chose between hotspots didn't make it better for me.

Doing some reading, some problems got patched on PC, on Nintendo Switch however they didn't. Be patient through my rant, it wasn't just bad, but whilst I often ran without orientation to find the missing link to solve the puzzle, that actually caused problems as if the game expects you to stay within limits that are not defined. It means I often had to reboot an older savestat just cause I wasn't able to open the inventory on hotspots where I should have and when I returned to solve the puzzle straight without any further exploring it worked. One time, in front of the mayor's house, when the hospital train was still in, I couldn't leave the fountain area anymore. Seems I went there too early before my mission. When interacting with a bird, the game crashed with me remaining in first person, not able to do anything. I also had a black screen twice, one time followed by the question, if I'd like to report the problem to Nintendo, which I did.

That's still not even all of it. But the clipping of 3D models, having them cut in half by background objects or perspectives enabling you to look inside the protagonist like an empty barrel is what I'd call minor flaws in Syberia 3. Loading time and no way to skip dialogue? Live with it.

You can get sort of used to handling all that with lots of patience and tolerance. To the fact someone thought clicking ain't enough, leading to the player having to twist and turn lots of items with the analog stick, even though it's completely unnatural movement. To be honest, I often had to return, cause I forgot I could have pulled, twisted or opened something.

But I also enjoyed some of it, like loading a ferry with a crane, even though camera sight was almost none existent. In a way, it might have been a very special challenge combined with a sequel to games I actually never liked for their controls, but for their atmosphere.

Yes, even voice acting ain't perfect in Syberia 3. It's not the most creative idea to wake up in a hospital either, though this one has some special agenda with some old Soviet comrades behind it, it seems. It's also easier for us to escape than our friend with one leg missing.

Having no idea where those ostriches had been in the story before, I still enjoyed the design overall again, even if the product barely could match the technical level of the average PS3 game. It works out more of the bad guy duality from the first game with the filthy capitalist American on our back and the stereotype Russian enemy. Kate had to face a little misogyny before, but now it's also racism/elitism against an old tribe and polluted environment addressed. If you can live with the randomness of the story, it's actually not all that bad, I mean it kept me going after all, except from I had to play my money's worth out of Syberia 3 (paid almost 5€).

Seems it wasn't just me enjoying having to play another character in one scene, so a bonus scene let's you return to that constellation, filling some blanks from the game that weren't necessary to it, I've got to admit. There's some recycling to it, so it's really just some extra perspective that would have been too long in the actual game.

Syberia 3, if it did something right, taught me a lesson in remaining calm. If it wasn't for the revisit of familiar characters, I don't know if I would have sat through some of the most frustrating flaws ever witnessed in a game, not only on the Nintendo Switch. It definitely needs to be patched big time.

But at times when shows like 13 Reasons Why or Cobra Kai get schematically netflixed in later seasons, Syberia 3 still appears to be one of the better sequel stories after all. And since the series was never my favourite technically, it still somehow worked out, even though I'll never touch it again. I always wanted to know what happens next until the end. That is... something?

Would you like to read more of my backloggd adventure reviews?
Syberia
Syberia II
Whispers of a Machine
Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure
Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure

On search for more Point'n'Clicks to play on Nintendo Switch I stumbled upon My Brother Rabbit being on sale for just 1,49€, so what could go wrong? Colorful designs remind of Alice in Wonderland, though some faces rather pulled the existence of a show called Teletubbies back in mind. After all, we're inside a child's imagination.

There's just very little storytelling though to explain the situation, leaving the connection to the player's interpretation. That is quite different to what I'm used to within the genre. Despite having cut scenes, there's no focus on dialogue. It's all about diving deeper into fairytale realms with a strange twist in logic. And puzzles. Lots of them.

I can't say that's bad at all, though a huge portion of tasks is rather a finding Waldo principle, like finding a certain number of butterflies in the busy level designs. My Brother Rabbit's larger combination exercises on the other hand are a bit too hard for children, I think, and that sinister subtext ain't for them either.

Though I'd expect a less reduced Point'n'Click to become a favourite, clever yet funny dialogues and a better developed storyline, My Brother Rabbit kept me hooked for an extended afternoon to complete it in a single session. The game has a fascinating atmosphere, enough variability and almost hilarious characters to remain interesting.

The controls on Switch are, like often in the genre, something to get used to, but they are designed well enough to find all the tiny spots even in handheld mode. Even though there's little replay value, My Brother Rabbit is satisfactory at being that niche game it is. Nothing wrong with that. Guess I'd play another one like it.

Since Fran Bow and Limbo I'm very open to try out Indie games and Creepy Tale did not only look like it could be a mix, it actually was one, sort of. Maybe with some Bad Dream: Coma vibes thrown in, some might see parallels to Little Nightmares.

Truth is, Creepy Tale is a basterd son of a gun leaving its players on their own right there in the woods using a beautiful drawn art style and an entertaining mix between puzzles and platformer mechanics. Just that it relies little on your coordination skills. You will memorize some parts very well though as there's not as many save points as you might need.

It's all quite eerie and surreal, there's monsters, ghosts and a witch for instance and it turns out thinking straight forward is not the solution sometimes. I often got stuck, thinking I've been left without option, until I changed my mindset.

To be honest, I consulted a walkthrough guide twice feeling helpless and with Creepy Tale being crudely short that can be seen as a mistake. The tasks tend to be purposely frustrating big time though and as much I appreciate the challenge, there's a point to release the built up anger rather in a constructive way than screaming and throwing stuff around.

Creepy Tale did not feel too unfair to me, not to the point it would decrease my rating, anyway. I'd rather describe it as not compromising. To me it matches well how the game throws you into that nightmare and you could say even the length fits well with dream mechanics. You simply can't control when or how you will exit.

But I liked Creepy Tale enough, that I didn't want to end it that soon. I've just looked up walkthrough videos and they all clock in around the 25 minute mark. That's of course if you know what to do, but is that your money's worth for the regular asking price?

If you find it on discount, go for it, if you're into that kind of games. That's the essential variables here, I think. I'd be disappointed for it being that short with little replay motivation, if I'd paid more than the 2,99€ I got it for. And I can very well imagine people hating Creepy Tale for its puzzle design. Other than that, it's a beautiful piece of gaming art.

If you played the shite out of it or didn't, if you belong to the Game Boy generation, Tetris is probably your OG definition of puzzle games. Back then, it was packaged with the device, so everybody had it and often it was the only mandatory double available to use the link cable, good old times. Also the best marketing campaign for the best Soviet game (programmed by Alexei Paschitnow in 1984) known to me.

Tetris has a vivid history well documented, so I suggest watching a video or read up the reasons for the game's many versions of different quality. Though usually playing Tetris in other environments like Tetris 99 or Puyo Puyo Tetris today, I have lots of nostalgia for the Game Boy Version I remember to be superior to any other, especially the NES one that was available to me at a friend's place back then.

Now, you can add colour to it, pretty pictures and a story, but just like other puzzle games (Columns, that I sadly couldn't appreciate back in the day, Puyo Puyo, Dr. Mario or Panel de Pon) it's the very core game that has to be working so smoothly you'll be returning to beat a highscore for weeks, months or even years every other day.

A few simple shapes, seven different tetrominos, and the task to clear rows before you build up to the top is what get's your pulse rate rising in Tetris and it's really not more that I need to have fun for ages. Despite enjoying the game in competitive situations with other human players my classic mode is the marathon, having the opportunity to drift away into the zone on the wings of a brilliant score nicked from classical/folkloresque phrases.

Compared to especially the clones, Tetris in its Game Boy incarnation has some very precise controls only contributing to Tetrismania of its day. Heck, even my mum played it over and over, so it's probably legit calling Tetris the mother of casual games. It might at least have had the same kind of success the Wii had. After it went viral, Tetris alone sold the platform like Wii Sports and you could spot hipster managers playing on almost any train.

Please keep in mind the Game Boy was technically inferior to the Game Gear or Lynx, though its battery lifetime, measurements and gameplay lead to its success as one of the most sold consoles. Yet, when you look at the games, there's just few having the same flawless quality that Tetris has. That's what I call impact.

Raging Justice is another proof there seems to be a niche market recently, big enough to spawn at least two handful of sidescrolling beat'em ups from a more innovative Double Dragon Neon to a more traditional Streets of Rage 4, yet I get the impression not everybody can truly appreciate the simple arcade mechanics of a button smashing brawler.

I suspect it's not even due to the misinterpreted fact a straight forward, genre defining Final Fight was once supposed to interconnect with the Street Fighter series, which is remembered as the more complex fighting game it became, as critics of beat'em up tropes often seem to not even remember how arcade machines used to work. What players call unfair these days was once supposed to steal your quarters - the challenge on the other hand if you can beat swarming enemy waves anyway.

But maybe that's just a discrepancy of generations, just like I'm still having a hard time figuring out the strategic depth of Super Smash Bros. Actually, my nephew still is trying to get me hooked on that, while I'm trying to get him into old school beat'em ups and we're gaining some quality time out of it. It's a bummer though COVID is hindering the full use of Raging Justice's three player couch co-op, whilst at least on Nintendo Switch there seems to be no option for an online team up.

Raging Justice is not very far from what you'd expect from a classic brawler like Final Fight or Streets of Rage, which is a good thing, albeit I've read above mentioned criticism. Of course it looks rather contemporary retro with its glossy esthetics combined with an inconspicuous score, but that is fine by me, as long change doesn't make things significantly worse.

In case of Raging Justice I really welcome the approach to offer obstacles and an online highscore system next to three playable characters and several difficulty levels, inducing the player's return even after the game was beat.
Sadly, that's rather well-meant than well planned, so the extra kick of motivation will rather give reason to those who like to squeeze anything out of those games anyway than the casual player happy to complete Raging Justice at all.

In my opinion mastering the controls is what divides between those casual gamers and aficionados interested enough to return for a second playthrough and begin to enjoy the possibilities a six button design like this offers. Six buttons easily are double the amount usually busy in classic sidescrolling beat'em ups and still, Raging Justice has multiple actions on some.

If you want to survive it's best to get used to roll left and right via the shoulder buttons first. This will help you out of many delicate situations and actually works better than the traditional double tap to the left or right, that's also available.
B is jump, Y is punch, X is kick, but if you pick up a knife for instance with A, you can use it with Y or throw it with X. Also Y and X together is a special attack.
What starts to get confusing in battle frenzy is that A can additionally be clinging an opponent as well as cuffing when he or she is stunned.

Depending on how advanced you are, you probably will master coordination sooner or later before your first completion. But I didn't enjoy Raging Justice as much before my second attempt from the start. So I'd highly suggest to not just see it as repetitive in enemy design with some use of weapons and vehicles for a good hour of simple entertainment. Raging Justice is already superior to quite some old arcade machines at that point. But being able to think about set goals like collected money or number of arrest with your developed skills from the beginning is where score and fun starts.

Of course, it's still an arcade style game that's not making full use of possible career type roleplay options or the creation of a revolutionary open world brawler, but for what it is, I think Raging Justice is a nice addition to any sidescrolling beat'em up collection, considering it's possibly available on discount every now and then. To me, it has enough replay value even though I'm still ignoring the extra brawl mode to reach highscores in individual scenes.

If I'd have to address something, it's the environment and characters being very obvious for the genre. MakinGames are playing it safe by repeating the classic genre design elements everybody is reusing these days. Sure, arrests are not going to work in sword & sorcery, but would have with cops like in the Lethal Weapon movies for instance.
A nice modernisation could be getting rid of the textboxes that slow down the action if you don't intuitively click them away. A better use of integrated cut scenes and voice acting could be a more pleasant experience if they wanted to establish a story.

Maybe using the experience of creating a stable brawler that's rather confusing your eyes than becoming jerky with average to massive waves of opponent attacks is what lies in the future for Raging Justice's programmers. At least I'm willing to spend well earned money for another more creative take on the genre than they already did and I admit, I am hungry for another Golden Axe or Knights of the Round a lot more than for just another street fighting beat'em up.

On the other hand, Raging Justice is a fresh yet old school enough take on the genre to me right now, so if you're up for that, why not giving it a chance, too? I'm just booting it on my Nintendo Switch for another round at this instant.

Limbo, at the time of its Windows release around 2012, was one of those titles I had no idea existed, until I played it at a friend's place on PC. Main reason for that was that I really wasn't interested in new games.
My latest device was a GBA for ages and I still managed to find games on old machines to complete, whilst my imagination of modern games was mostly 3D design and overwhelming input with complicated controls and the need to invest loads of time and concentration. And Wii games usually too casual on the other hand.

Though I'm really into old and b/w movies, so having no aversion like many of the younger folks do, the simple but beautiful grey scale design inspired by German Expressionism wasn't what caught my attention in the first place. Actually, because of the title, I had expected a dancing game.
My love with Limbo began, when I was forced to take the pad in hand to play.
It just feels so natural exploring the eerie landscape and dive deeper into physics of a sombre, unknown territory. It's kind of a modern take on the old days, when you put in Pitfall or Jungle Hunt. That have been really crude graphics, but enough to trigger your imagination adding up to adventures larger than life.

The moment you gruesomely die and don't want the nightmare to end is when you realize you're hooked. I guess it must have been when I had to find out how to get past a huge spider that literally pierced me over and over again.
I never finished Limbo that day though and here is where the Nintendo Switch version comes into play. I got introduced to the Switch at the same friend's house, but never got one myself until the OLED version was unleashed. Now looking for games and Limbo being on discount was the ideal moment.

I know things have happened since Limbo's release, like danish programmers Playdead released their follow up Inside. But a great game has to stay at least a good game no matter how much time has passed.
Now, I always liked puzzles and platforming. I guess if you liked to play something as Kwirk or Plok like me, you can understand where Limbo clicks into connection here.

It's not breathless action until maybe the final sections, so what I like is I can usually slow down between tasks and think what I want to do. And even if not, it's very pleasant you can run into it until you pass. The save points are very convenient, so there's usually little to memorize, compared to back in the day, when Jump'n'Runs expected you to learn complete level designs, having you fall back to the start for any lethal mistake.

Old platformers are sometimes awfully short if you look back at them, but with that system it took a while to master them.
But Limbo's being comfortable makes it also appear not too complex. Sure, you've got to take your time to internalize the mechanics, like how to move with a friggin maggot stuck into your head, having an influence on control, but that's part of the learning curve. Next obstacle with a maggot, you have another task to worry about.

Actually, I had to look up information to find out the game is supposed to draw interpretations from the sentence „Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters Limbo“. I just checked and it doesn't show up in the game. However, whilst Limbo itself doesn't suffer in quality depending on that knowledge, it would have helped to understand what the ending was about. Not that it really is any more specific than the bestiary and people, live or dead, you meet while manipulating objects or even physics along the way.

Though the ending felt a little underwhelming as a reward, it's the overall experience distinguishing Limbo as the brilliant adventure it is.
Having in mind it started out with just Arnt Jensen and some sketched out ideas in 2004 until he met Dino Patti via internet campaign to then establish Playdead and finance the project, Limbo is a very refined and thought through debut plenty of publishers wish they could offer.

I'm still about to play Inside, but judging from the reviews, Playdead managed to build upon that success.
Even if it will be hard to reverse engineer that initial experience when you already played newer games inspired by Limbo, I'd still highly suggest picking it up anyway.
Compared to titles like Dream Alone whose traps seem just to be designed to piss you off, Limbo has that almost flawless quality to really put you into the zone.

As mentioned above, Limbo really helped me to rebuild trust in the gaming industry. I don't know if it really had that much of an impact, but it was a door opener to find more gems hidden under what appeared to me as a surface of uninteresting next gen titles. Call me an old fart, who doesn't even use added save options, if the original didn't have one, but I've got certain schematics of what I like, represented by Tomb Raider putting an end to platforming games finally back then. I mainly played racing games after that, though GBA was enough of a throwback to pull me in.

I'm actually very happy that I could find entertainment in new titles and mechanics. In the end, there are games like Limbo out there that also got me to enjoy some of the comforts established over the years. So much, that for instance in Point'n'Click adventures, I start to avoid old games with mechanics way too complicated, after games like Strangeland showed me it doesn't have to be that way.
As the revelation Limbo was to me, I should probably give it five stars for the conversion it started.

Uno is a card game, that sneaked its way into my late childhood, but never could replace the quite similar game Mau Mau, played with a regular card deck. So it's that simple, you got your numbers and instead of pictures, you have some more obvious special cards that make it a little easier to define what cards let you pick a colour or draw additional cards for instance. In any incarnation, Mau Mau or Uno and its counterfeits, it's fun and challenges friendships.

I've always been open to play games based on golf or pool on electronic devices since I had my first Atari VCS, but board or card games? I have Monopoly on Sega's Master System and Mega Drive/Genesis, but that came later and wouldn't have been a substitute to the board and card game affine household I grew up in. I was lucky I had two parents, a brother and friends visited to play as well. I had plenty of games and if we didn't borrow additional at the library, the friends brought some along as well.

Then, I didn't have an idea of advantages an electronic version like Uno could have and those Monopoly examples I tried later appeared too complicated to play with humans if you own the boardgame plus the computer wasn't the most pleasant opponent. Maybe on a rainy and very lonely day it would have been an option.

But since things have changed, having online options that turned me towards Texas Hold'em for a couple of years more recently and now, having to shelter against COVID-19, a game like Uno appears quite convenient.

A while ago, we tried free copycat versions on Android. Sure, the basic game was there, but neither were house rules nor a good way to find additional human players if needed.

Same goes for the variant on the Clubhouse Games collection for Nintendo Switch. There, Uno is just a game of 51 and you can't expect it to be really refined, I suppose. We often play as two humans and so filling in with two dumb computers doesn't make it great fun.
So, when Uno was on sale for 3,99€ in Nintendo's eShop, we went ahead and grabbed it for our Switches.

There's a tutorial if you didn't know how to win Uno by playing all cards from your hand before anyone else does. Judging from how some novice players act online it should be mandatory anyway to learn what buttons to use in specific situations.

On one Switch, you can play solo or tag team with one compagnon offline against the computer. You could also connect up to 4 Switch devices locally, but then you could also use a physical card deck.

Another good reason to pick an online game is XP you don't collect from playing locally. There's also achievements in online Uno to make it a little more interesting and to impress opponents with a badge next to your Mii avatar, I guess.

You can randomly join a game or lobby as it comes up or create your own lobby with your favourite house rules and DLC theme to invite friends to or have random players join once you make it public. There's also a tag team mode to play online, if you like to.

Doesn't sound too bad, does it? Well, it depends. Actually the house rules cover anything I wish for in Uno. There are also daily rule settings if you can't decide on your own. You can also choose between just one round or points to win a set. The maximum length of 500 points may sound short, but can expand to more than an hour of grueling battles.

I got a winter themed DLC for free, but for the usual, Ubisoft themed (like Rabbits or Rayman) DLC, you'll be asked an admission. The latter will come with a set of extra action cards able to twist and turn your game massively if played at the right moment.

As for now, I don't really like them, especially because the alternative card design is rather confusing. I didn't have to buy any though, as you automatically play those Uno themes when joining another online game with that setting.

However, the achievement system encourages you to use them, as well as it will lead to players seem to make stupid decisions sometimes to fulfill the tasks. Often that will help you though, so nothing to worry about.

What is a bummer, drumroll, is that Ubisofts servers are lagging big time. That's not so much the problem, when it's hard to join a game or you don't find a stranger to play Uno from your lobby within 30 minutes, so if you have friends to play then it will be fine. Mostly. The game will freeze if you let others join or if they lose connection. It also crashes completely every now and then, probably at times people actually want to play.

I must admit though, there was a patch lately and things might have been a tad better since then, but far from flawless.
You can sense from that report I still like to play Uno online, especially as a side activity to listening music for example (the in game music isn't worth mentioning) and of course together with friends to shout at via Discord.

For side activity it would be better if you could start a game from your own lobby without opponents, so you can always play with the Uno rules and theme you like. You can't and so have to lurk around for someone to join far too long most of the time. Once started, if that one guy you needed to start leaves, you will play against three AIs anyway.

Instead, you're forced to rejoin the same game over and over, bothering others who like another set of rules by freezing their Uno game until you found another round more of your taste.
(I don't like to be that guy, so I often sit through a round I don't prefer until I hop on. Others don't.)

Gee, if the Robbins family didn't adapt older rule ideas into such a great card game back in 1969, I probably wouldn't still be playing Uno on the Switch. But it is that excellent foundation, even just half decently turned into an application, that can't be destroyed by poor performance. After all, you've got to be resilient to play Uno anyway, don't you?

I won't go as far as calling it a feature though, no, and I really want you to know what you're getting into unless Ubisoft is able to fix this, but still, Uno is a fun game and who knows when we'll not have to worry about health issues anymore. So I rather have a server crash than my immune system.

But, dear Ubisoft, I've done everything to improve my internet connection so I can play without disturbance and I know, sometimes, there can be technical difficulties, but of course I would prefer to play a game how it was intended, expecting you not to have planned to have those lags and crashes in Uno.

Did I buy discount? Of course, but that doesn't mean support should be cut down. It just means if I had paid more, damn would I be angry anytime I boot an otherwise entertaining program. Rating would be at least 4 stars without the technical problems.

There's an evolution of racing games that spawned some revolutionary milestones. However, realistic simulations to me weren't a thing until Formula 1 or TOCA on the PlayStation. Until then, I had enjoyed playing titles like Super Cars 2 on the Amiga, RC Pro Am on the Gameboy and finally almost perfect fun racers Super Mario Kart and Rock'n'Roll Racing on the SNES.

There had been attempts on simulating before of course on almost any machine and Pole Position for the Atari VCS 2600 was my first contact, that I actually had to stick with for plenty of years. It feels like an old man, reporting of how hard times were back in the day, but this joke of a game really is all we had.

I had the chance to play the Pole Position arcade cockpit as well and even though it is simple and comparable to technical limitations of a Master System or NES game, maybe, except for offering more realistic steering peripherals, it is definitely something for early 80s. It's probably enjoyable for a quarter or two even today, if you're into checking out history and Virtua Racing is occupied.

On VCS, like almost any arcade port since Pac-Man, it suffers heavily from technical possibilities. There's really just a lump of pixels representing your car, though at least the tires have different colour than the body. The opponents don't. Those are just a yellow mess. The Sound is a good equivalent to the fart app I once downloaded to my cell phone.

My nostalgia for Pole Position relies mostly on how we used to play with it. Whilst it hardly does any more than those backlit Tomy racing playsets some of us owned in the 80s, it also works quite similar incorporating your imagination. Just like we've role played being fighter pilots playing Top Gun or being Luke Skywalker while playing Solaris, Pole Position was our chance being Niki Lauda or any other preferred driver.

That on one hand is something magical I miss in most recent games, on the other a game like Pole Position has so many blanks to fill in, that I really don't know how to sell it to anyone today. It is one thing if there's nothing else available, but if there's so much more on offer, why would you pick a game that doesn't at least have some kick ass mechanics to draw you in?

Let's face it, what we spend (well earned?) pocket money on ages ago probably wasn't even a bang for a buck back in the day. We just had to make the best of it speeding up, steering left and right like an idiot and turn the volume down to a minimum. And concerning imagination, once we had access to Hang-On for Master System or Test Drive for Amiga, Pole Position was swiftly forgotten.

There are good games on Atari's VCS 2600, but it just wasn't the time for racing in home environment. For instance, I played more hours of Pac-Kong, which is a horrible platformer, than I ever did of Pole Position.
I like the artwork of my copy though and with the memories of how we played as kids, often with the box and manual as the only blueprint to what those blocks could possibly represent, it might stay in the collection forever.

It must be weird to go back to Super Circuit coming from an all 3D era of Mario Kart for the kids. I had a hard time reckoning what it could be like for my 12 year old nephew when he felt lost facing the original Mario Kart on SNES Mini a few years back or a 21 year old a few weeks ago, when we changed from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to the original on the Switch.

To me, the whole story is entirely different. I grew up playing racing games looking way worse than Mario Kart, so when F-Zero and the plumber's grand prix were released on the SNES, those games were a revolutionary blast. Looking back, I understand graphics appear a little mushy maybe, but that's what made the games so incredibly fast.

Especially the original Mario Kart with its competitive features was our go to racer for years and what Mario Kart 64 had to offer just wasn't as perfect. It didn't look as good, the N64 controllers were crap and the gameplay itself... well, we still played the shite out of it at a friend's place, but it was no adequate substitute.

Introducing Mario Kart: Super Circuit I bought the GBA for, actually. That was promising. Back from those weird inferior 3D experiments to a style we knew and loved on SNES, except graphics looked a little more polished. It supported link cable, even with just one cartridge in use, just that the opponent could only choose Joshi. Real friends owned their private copy anyway.

I still feel, that Super Circuits, despite the new tracks we rarely used after unlocking the old ones, just feels almost as pure and perfect as the original Mario Kart on SNES, though it has a place in my heart ever since. Any Mario Kart I tried after Super Circuit couldn't capture what I liked about a game that requires skill instead of helping you slingshot after you messed up. Actually, I still have been playing almost daily on my trusty GBA until the SNES Mini came out and I kind of changed back to the emulated original for a while.

Even though I learned to love my Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I still think it's too much of item overkill and the way it rewards skill is too much based on, well, cheating, like the extensive use of shortcuts, to be truthfully honest. But Mario Kart 8 manages to balance between skilled driving and arcade mechanics enough to be fun. You can accidentally win sometimes and you loose way to often to crappy driver's just because they get spoiled with items, but in the end, you can dominate if you did your homework.

Still, Mario Kart: Super Circuit to me is the better balanced game between an already perfect original and modernity. I might have to be called purist, after rambling subjectively so much at the least, without even getting into detail about the program itself. But hey, it's Mario Kart, what do you expect? Everybody knows Mario Kart.

What I want to say is, there's some special charme about those two titles, the SNES and GBA version, that just can't be challenged and I'm a bit worried this is getting lost within later generations. But just as I had the patience to keep up with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, maybe it's possible for others to give those old games a chance like the above mentioned young folks did. After some getting used to and hard learning we actually had fun together. And after all, it's the history all your other favourite Mario Karts are based on.

Probably I'd recommend starting with the SNES game to understand what Mario Kart: Super Circuit was offering me after a disappointment with Mario Kart 64. The major flaw of Super Circuit could actually be, that we did not play it amongst friends as much as we did the SNES game. Maybe, had it not been requiring to link up consoles and had the screens been lit from the start, Super Circuit with its new additional tracks would have been completely on par with the SNES version.

I really was hungry for a true sequel and you can't believe how much I would appreciate a new one returning to what I feel was the main emphasis of Mario Kart. Just with modernized 2,5D graphics and some new tracks of course plus the online functions I enjoy so much in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Until then, I might wheel out the GBA every other month and see if I can beat myself in time trial anymore.

Looking forward to a rather short puzzle plattformer like the first game I just finished last December, Creepy Tale 2 was actually a little surprise. Though I already had expectations that led me to buy the game early and discounted to 7,99€, still a lot as I had bought plenty on sale anyway that I could have played instead, this sequel changed game mechanics to an almost point'n'click adventure, adding depth to a simple left and right scenario.

No longer do you jump or randomly click to check for interactivity, as now there are hotspots allowing specific actions. And there is more than a vague story to Creepy Tale 2, actually even voice acted in English, with an eastern-european accent more or less. It does blend in however, because it is a sinister narration like fairytales before Disney added their formula just like it happened to Marvel and Star Wars more recently. It feels like at the adequate dark medieval place for a deceased mother and a little sister lost to evil forces.

When you start playing the boy Lars at his home, just like in Creepy Tale, there will be an expository, slight guidance at first, introducing the world and controls, but soon you're on your own, away from the house, looking for the remaining family. In case of Creepy Tale 2 though, due to the new hotspot system, I felt a lot less lost in what I was expected to do.

Good thing is, although you could play Creepy Tale 2 as a standalone title, it also delivers kind of an origin story to the build up mysteries from the first game without actually pushing it. It's up to your interpretation on the details found in both games, I guess, as I've read reviews telling there's no interconnection at all. Well, see for yourself.

Occuring in quite similar realms, it's no surprise puzzle design is rather familiar. It's basically a more polished surface with improved artworks reminding of old fantasy cartoons mixed with a beastiary and characters close to Creepy Tale. In the sequel, you find detail elements like glowing butterflies or dreamcatchers included just as puzzles will require a lot of trial and error, frustration and relief after learning patterns to hide from cannibal witches or opening locks.

Sadly the two options for an ending aren't too rewarding. In general I felt that from a gaming perspective it was actually anticlimactic due to the linear design and final decision happening way after quite some dialogue passed the screen. That's probably a matter of taste though, I just had a quite similar experience with The Whispered World. I would have preferred maybe just another little scene added before the credits roll in. It may contribute to the impression that the Switch version of Creepy Tale 2 omits the achievement system.

Technically, there's really just minor flaws to report from the game. I've heard the PC version had some bad freezing glitches that I didn't experience on the Switch. I had about five moments where it felt like the figure is stuck for a few seconds. There was no need for a reboot though. And then there was one puzzle that required me to learn I don't just move a switch back and forth horizontally, I can actually push and pull it vertically as well. That design didn't feel self explanatory enough.

If you don't want to play Creepy Tale 2 in English, you might want to check first, because when I left the default settings on German, the texts read like directly from Google Translate without having a native speaker related to the game looking over it. I could live with few sentences making no sense at all as I was listening to the English dub anyway, but when you read a diary a certain logic is mandatory.
In this case, and I switched to English text then, the month "March" for example was translated to "Marsch" from "the march" like in "marching soldiers" rather than the word "März" required here.

Creepy Tale 2 in a way still is a mixed bag, that you play as a fan of the atmosphere and story rather than looking for intelligent puzzles. Maybe I'm too used to moon logic here, but for instance I'd prefer finding actual solutions to clicking on a lock until it works. I also like to think forward, so stopping me from picking up an already highlighted item, that I will have to actually get, when I found out about it a few steps later does not work best with my way of playing.

I've read critique some walking back and forth is required due to clues being put on walls and other immobile objects, but as much as I understand a journal would help, as an old school gamer, I just rely on the secret technique of taking notes here. In fact, the old fart I am, just having a smartphone since about 15 month, I already moved on to creating a Google Docs file or even take a screenshot with the camera. I know, I could also screenshot with the Switch directly, but neither is the picture as easy to access during play, nor did they make transfer to my mobile device comfortable.

It's also a great addition for Creepy Tale 2 to offer more exploration through interaction, but that plus on the other hand also leads to that you might have to repeat the same combination a second time, so you've proven definitely, to find out you need to do it a third time, just for the sake of it. And then, when it's clear you want to jump on that item you just placed to cross water, you have to click that thrice as well, without anything to disturb you passing. It's nitpicking, but that really could be designed more convenient if there isn't supposed to be a challenge anyway.

But then you're just drawn into nightmarish conditions even forcing the young protagonist to kill sometimes. Creepy Tale 2 has a more than adequate score, I must add. In combination of sound design via headphones and the vibration of my pro controller some scenes literally felt creepy and in those rare moments when it's not only timing but time pressure the adrenaline level rises.

I guess after the blend of different situations in an eerie environment still created an interesting enough game with Creepy Tale, you can count the narrative development of Creepy Tale 2 as an improvement, whilst it's still stuck in the same kind of puzzle design. If that core would have evolved with the sequel, I would have called it a better game.

This way, I sure needed little more than three times the two hours it took me to complete the first game, but a lot of it went for narration I had no influence on other than to click it away, if I wanted to rush. I also wasted some time on puzzles that I possibly just was to lazy to find a clue for, but as they just required me going through a manageable amount of combinations I kept soldiering on.

Having paid a rather high price for me being a cheapskate, the effort put in to tell an actual story was required to balance the difference between the 2,99€ Creepy Tale cost me and the 7,99€ I spent on the sequel. Otherwise the lack of creativity in puzzle design would have felt close to the edge of what I'd be willing to waste on another random indie game, though in case of a then still quite new Creepy Tale 2 it really was the art and ambience I was after and I got that served well.

So I had neither played a visual novel before, nor did the term pop up despite my interest in story driven point'n'click. But I had the spare 99 points for the game being on sale at the Nintendo eStore and One Night Stand somehow caught my attention. A sex game on family friendly Nintendo?! Not quite.

According to Wikipedia Lucy Blundell got the idea for her game debut One Night Stand while watching a miserable looking man on public transportation. She then rotoscoped footage shot of herself via mobile and used a free visual novel software called Ren'Py. The rather visual short story turns out as a chamber play assuming the protagonist woke up hungover next to a naked woman. The being dizzy feels real.

So One Night Stand let's the player try to find out how he ended up in the situation as well as offering plenty of interactions to influence the outcome, i.e. how much of a walk of shame it's going to be. The interesting aspect here is no matter how cool you both try to handle it, it's at least a little awkward.

I was surprised One Night Stand was first released on Windows PC rather than a mobile device as your first intuitive playthrough will last a few minutes, but for me, there was a huge motivation to find out what would happen if I didn't try to act as myself.

So One Night Stand appeared to be the ideal game to return to every once in a while to try and see all the twelve ways to complete. On the other hand, I was curious enough to master that within two sessions. That could also have something to do with the game mechanics being close to what I know as point'n'click, something you can't take for granted in a visual novel as Our Worlds Is Ended just taught me more recently.

The Switch version of One Night Stand not only offers to actually play it on a portable device. You can also pick if you'd like to control it via touchscreen, pro controller or with motion control support using joy cons. As much as I like my pro controller, using touchscreen turned out to be most convenient to me, even though I prefer not having to clean the screen from my prints all the time.

From my perspective One Night Stand was a great introduction to the format that way, as interaction still felt something like a puzzle whilst it was actually a maze of morality to a rather elaborate story told from a mid to end twenties point of view. Though that still is quite young to me, grown out of the demand for party nights let alone sexual adventures on that level, it's on the other hand a lot less juvenile than games I'm aware of to handle sexually related topics.

That still doesn't exclude the opportunity to put on her panties and try to get away with it, but details like this are rather a refreshing humorous turn of events to expand the variety of behaving like a jerk than an actual puberty joke.

I liked that about One Night Stand a lot. There are certain limits of exploration when it comes to details like the woman's dissimilar id's, but it doesn't seem to be the point to find out the exact story why she might have or use these. Most of us can imagine that and an ellipsis in these cases is probably more exciting than the plain explanation. It's more about how good of an idea it is to search her wallet while she's in the bathroom in the first place.

I guess if you didn't bring up the empathy before you played One Night Stand, there's an actual chance for you to learn your date is a human being with emotions, too. And that's quite reasonable as legitimation for whatever you're bold enough to try in this game.

So you ended up in bed together after having too many drinks. Shit happens. People of all genders do that. Doesn't matter. Is that a reason to take a snap of her sleeping naked to show your friend? You'll eventually find out. And then you hopefully learn through communication that this woman is actually nice and you don't really want to do anything like walking out while she's throwing up in the toilet.

One Night Stand is a beautifully realistic take on virtue and temptation of quite regular people, who got into a situation they can't even remember. It's up to the player to decide what's best to handle while having the freedom to experiment. I think though most of us wish in the end to have met under other circumstances. At least I was able to get to know an interesting person I would like to spend more time with if I was the protagonist.

That's quite an achievement for a program some people see as just a short game. In fact, I even saw it as a goal to try and make it last as long as I could, depending on behaviour. I'd say One Night Stand is one of those indies to profit from not having to match any standards, being good at being what they are and eventually finding their audience. If there's more like this, I'd love to play it.

Clubhouse Games is kind of a mixed bag, especially when you've got other versions of Uno and Ludo, but there should be enough casual games to wheel this out every other session with your friends. I call it shelved at the moment, because I won't start playing the Mahjong type games and have played my share of most the interesting ones. If it's back in the cartridge slot, it will probably stay a while again.

This compilation worked like trying some games in the beginning and stick with the most fun. We actually like Darts more than Bowling, but prefer to pick Pool most of the time, as it's not having the physical requirements. Motion control worked better for Bowling on Wii, in my opinion, but I could figure out throwing 180's in darts swiftly. That sadly made it less a challenge and I wasn't hooked for that reason, too. Pool is stripped to the essentials like most games on here, but it works well enough to entertain some chatty rounds. I did not miss much, except it's not the real table.

We quite often played Ludo online, it's great for being just the game without any glitter and the virtual dice make it go much faster than the physical board game.

We also had a phase playing Othello which I learned to like from the Game Boy game back in the day. Checkers works, but was too simple. I couldn't find one amongst my friends to play chess with and it's too complicated from my wife's view, so based on my old Battle Chess skills from until around 1990, the computer was too hard as an opponent to start again. However, whilst the AI in Othello is challenging, I could manage to beat it and after some training the wife could also beat me once or twice, so she keeps going.

We also like to throw in a few rounds of Air Hockey, Connect Four, Mini Curling or Golf every once in a while, all fun little games to waste your time on for a few minutes more. It really adds up all together and soon two hours have passed. I guess that's somehow the concept of this compilation.

I don't like Blackjack and I spent years playing Hold em on Pokerstars, multiple tables at a time actually, so there's another section I didn't touch yet.

There's some games I didn't play as much as I thought. The falling object puzzle is ok, but it's made for just the few minutes. I've been playing Mastermind for ages back in the day and had a board game revival with my brother a few years back, before I downloaded an app version on my mobile more recently. But the game is there and it's a good chance I'll stick to it later.

That's how much the Clubhouse Games compilation has to offer. Like, I really never played much Solitaire, but one day I clicked on Klondike Solitaire and kept returning almost any day for a month straight. Sometimes 15 minutes at once, sometimes hours while listening Mostrich Mixtapes on Spotify. And that's already a lot more than I played all the backlogged sale items and freebies I never touched, just for one of the included 51 games!

That's the deal here, you get 51 games, most of them on their own maybe worth a buck or two on the eShop. Some of them you'll like, some of them you don't. But in this bundle, at least if you got it for a good price, you'll probably save money on the ones you like in that calculation and get all the other games on top. And if the Ubisoft servers crash too bad again, you also have a backup to play Uno with your friends. So what's to argue about?

This is not a system seller, but it's one of the casual must haves for any Switch collection. Despite you only need one cartridge to connect with your friends locally, who only need the demo, sales might have profited from Covid, as playing online, that requires the full version on all ends, is a most welcome option these days, when developers like the ones from Boomerang Fu sadly still miss out.

One thing I miss here is a good Pinball machine, one thing I still need for my Switch. And just like Clubhouse Games introduced me to Klondike Solitaire, it also raised the question if there's more Golf or Pool games to check out. Seems like it wasn't just plenty wasted hours, but as stripped the games might appear, actually fun and more to come with this compilation and maybe other games I wouldn't have looked for.

Clubhouse Games that way isn't that one AAA blockbuster ruling your life for a couple of days or weeks, but it's a compilation of some little fun games and some the pristine epitome of play, that will probably end up being booted every once in a while as long as I will have my Switch.

Wow, that was short. The Little Acre seems to be the only noticable game by irish Pewter Games Studios and so I don't want to be too harsh with them, as they took a rather original shot at one of my favourite genres, point'n'click adventures, which we can't have enough of.

Produced with the help of legendary game designer Charles Cecil, who created titles such as Broken Sword - one of my personal favourites since its release - it might have been my high expectations that got in the way. In my imagination though with The Little Acre I was also going to play a game with a slight medieval and/or steam punk flair, which wasn't exactly the case.

The setting nonetheless has potential in combination with the charming cartoon style. I can't remember having played any game set in 1950s Ireland. Sadly that is not very obvious. Actually waking up in that countryside house at first reminded me of the exposition in The Whispered World. Later a microwave oven comes to use, an apparatus available at the time, but with no precise reference The Little Acre could happen in any rural western environment roughly second half of the twentieth century.

As many point'n'click adventures on the Nintendo Switch, The Little Acre reveals being a port due to controls that would have been more comfortable using a mouse or at least a touchscreen option omitted in this game.
As often movement seems to originally have been designed for using mouseclicks, as the allowed areas were placed rather crudely.

Though they did a good job implementing a mix of hot spots targeted with a cursor once you combine with items from the inventory and triggered via button control whilst you move your character around with the same analogue stick also used for said cursor, it can get in the way the moment timing is required.

In general The Little Acre plays very well on the Switch though, except for that one time I managed to crash the game when I removed the glove from the machine followed by clicking on the screen on the wall. Somehow it didn't like that, so Lily kept shaking like an epileptic. I could reboot an auto save to solve this.

I liked how the story unfolds from two perspectives. At first, you play the unemployed Aidan, searching for his father who left plenty of strange inventions to deal with. The Little Acre shines once his daughter Lily wakes up having to look for her father as well. It's this cute infantile troublemaker angle of a brat with a british (irish?) accent that defines the game for me.

Neither are the typical escape room puzzles very challenging nor is The Little Acre blessed with a very innovative plot. Possibly this was a matter of time and money, as especially the ending appeared very rushed. There's a lack in character development once you left the house, primarily on supporting roles such as grandfather's colleague or the wannabe nemesis, both appearing very randomly.

However, never packed with a large inventory and accompanied by animal helpers, The Little Acre could be a good introduction to the genre for children. I don't think those still are used to the cartoon style from TV, but as long they understand the English dub (there are only subs for others like Germans), that is alright except sometimes varying in volume, it might be a bit more challenging for them whilst the humor is mildly enough to show them, yet not precisely educational.

Having said that, The Little Acre wasn't really bad, there was just huge room for improvement left, a collection of chances missed in an otherwise nice construct. With those absent challenges and ideas it somehow was better keeping it at a possible length of one and a half hours straight, or if you're an obsessive explorer like me, even with achievements omitted on the Nintendo Switch, rather two and a half hours.

I would really like to see if Pewter Games can build upon this and create a more refined follow up.