I really needed a game like Alan Wake 2. After growing increasingly jaded with AAA titles and its repetition, Alan Wake 2 offers an incredibly creative experience that breaks the mold of what you would expect in a typical high budget game.

I love Remedy's storytelling. They present a lot of questions to you, but rarely answer them explicitly. In some cases, you are left to speculate, or wait for the next game in the series. The story is purposefully convoluted, full of references to a 10 year old game and mentions you need a very keen eye to truly appreciate. The story jumps back and forth in time, from one character to another, and sometimes it's questionable what is and isn't "real". While this can be somewhat annoying for some, it ensures for me that the game and its mysteries stay in my mind for a long time. It is a game that, if you get invested, it stays with you for a long time after you play it. Lore videos, discussion boards, making up my own theories, it's a lot of fun.

Alan's endless monologues, Saga questioning what is happening and what is real, characters seemingly knowing more than they let on, Athi the janitor, I just wanna dive deeper and deeper into the lore and discover as much as possible.

When it comes to the gamplay itself, it's good. Alan offers classic Survival Horror type gameplay, where you have to be careful with your resources, solve puzzles while pushing forward to continue the story. Alan Wake 2 fixes a lot of my issues with typical survival horrors. There are very few "annoying" things to deal with. No big unkillable AI that does nothing to improve the atmosphere, no running to the other side of the map to find what you need to solve a puzzle, and no boss fights where all you do is unload 3 magazines of every gun type into them before they die.

Saga's side of the game is similar, but focuses more on action, exploration, more long winded puzzles, and meeting characters to drive the plot forward.

While all of this is well and good, the game is not without flaws. Here are my main gripes:
1) Sometimes I would know the answer to a puzzle, get really confused as to why it wasn't working, second guess myself and run around the map like a headless chicken before realizing I forgot to put a picture in its place in the Mind Place. Bruh. Seriously? Sometimes I would even solve the puzzle, look in the correct spot, but the item isn't there because I didn't enter my head and "think" the item into existence. This sucks, and the Saga part of the story is especially guilty of this. It happens multiple times.

2) The optimization is god awful. Seriously? 4080, i7-13th gen, 32GB ram and I can't even get 60 fps at 1440p without DLSS? Even with DLSS it sometimes stutters. DLSS makes the game feel much heavier and clunker than it needs to be. What a shame. The anti aliasing is also really bad, you essentially have to choose between a jagged game or a blurry game. If you choose to play with DLSS, it is especially bad when anti aliasing is on.

3) Sometimes I would get lost. The map was not very good, and it was not always clear where the game wanted you to go. Especially in some of the open ended areas like when you explore the open world of the Dark Place, particularly when you look for something that hasn't appeared in the world yet, so you hyper focus on scouting for that one thing that doesn't exist. The map is also inaccurate multiple places in the Dark Place because walking into a room will technically teleport you somewhere else, so you take a left and on the map it looks like you took a right, and you also sprinted 200 meters (because you teleported).

In conclusion, I think this game is amazing, and definitely deserves all the praise it is getting. I am super excited for Remedy's next game, and I can't wait to dive back into this fantastical world of horror. I can only hope we don't have to wait 10 years for the next one.

Do you remember watching these stick fight animations like 10 years ago? You ever thought "Man, I wish there was a game that would let me do this". Well, here it is.

Stick fight does not only look crazy like these animations we look back so fondly on, it plays like a dream too. "Fighting games are turn based" has long been said in the community, "you just need to know when to take your turn". The developer Ivy Sly took this literally and created one of the most innovative fighting games we've seen in a long time.

Both players doing their turn at the same time, having to guess what the opponent is going to do, confuse them with movement, react to the moves they throw out... it's all so familiar. It really plays just like a fighting game, but your reaction time is instant because of the turn based nature of the game.

If you're a greedy player, you'll throw up stupid moves and get punished, if you're scared, you'll get backed into the corner, and if you're too defensive, you will get grabbed. It's all here, just in a turn based coating.

What really takes this game to the next lvl are the mechanics it borrows from other fighting games. Being able to influence the direction you fly when you get hit, guessing when the opponent is going to push you away with their burst, how different characters have different friction on the ground allowing for sliding moves and creative ways of hitting the opponent, fighting game fans will recognize all of this and be able to pinpoint what games they're being "borrowed" from, but ti just makes so much more sense in this game.

The level of control you have over your character in this game, even when you're being comboed by your opponent is astonishing.

This game manages to skip a lot of the issues traditional fighting games face. Telling your friend that they have to stick with a game for a while before they know if it's for them or not, it's not really a good selling point. "The game is fun, but you have to put in the work". This game skips all of that. Anyone can play this, and they don't have to spend hours in training mode to do awesome combos. Every time you press a button, you can see a preview of what is going to happen, before it happens. This means that you'll be able to see what moves will and will not work, and you can compare your moves to your opponent's, letting you know how big of a risk you're taking.

The main issue with this game is that some of the downsides of fighting games are even worse in this one. Fighting game players will complain having to "watch a cutscene" if your opponent combos you for more than five seconds. This game is even worse. While it is cool that you are also playing while you're being combod, by influencing the direction you get hit, your options are still extremely limited, and you're not exactly doing anything "cool".
Having to wait for your opponent to plan their incredibly cool 10+ hit combos can leave you waiting for upwards of five minutes before you're able to play again. But then again, when you actually get a hit, you'll be the one doing the most awesome sequence of moves you'll ever see for five minutes, so maybe it's worth it ;)

Overall, this game is incredible. It's a fighting game with all the depth and fun characters you'd expect, while also being incredibly accessible to the point where anyone that understands the basic principle of "You want to hit the opponent without getting hit yourself" to play and do awesome moves.

Regardless of if you win or lose, you'll be able to watch the whole match play at lightning speed once the round is over, and it looks just as cool every single time. I'll continue to play this a lot more for sure.
Highly recommend.

This is definitely one of the best co-op games to come out. The quality overall is through the roof, with an incredible attention to detail in every aspect of the game.

The platforming is smooth, the voice acting is fantastic, and the environments are fun, unique, and are changed up very often. The game effortlessly mixes comedy with more serious relationship issues, and never drops a beat.

The gameplay, while a platformer most of the time, changes it up so often that it's almost like playing a succession of minigames. In
one moment you'll play a plaformer, the next you're flying, then skating, etc, so the gameplay remains fresh throughout.

My main gripe with this game is that while I appreciate that the game wants you to constantly move forward, the puzzles the game gives you can feel like they drag a lot, especially when there are multiple puzzles in quick succession. "Activate 6 of these things, by doing the exact same thing but slightly different 6 times", it is not really fun, and slows down the pace of the game.

Furthermore, while it is great that every chapter gives you new abilities to play with, some chapters leaves one player doing almost nothing. This is especially the case in certain chapters where Cody's abilities boil down to "hold the door so May can play the game".

Despite these flaws, the game is still a blast throughout, and should be at the top of the backlog for any couple looking for something to play together. I highly recommend it.

Buckshot Roulette is a fun little game taking clear inspirations from games like Inscryption. I enjoy the cocky and straightforward lines of the Dealer, the music, and the fun strategies that come from different items.

The items is what elevates this game from just being fancy russian roulette and turns it more into a strategy game. Some of them let you see what happens next, some let you gauge probability, while others mess up your opponent. This is where the fun is.

That said, this is very much a "minigame". You play it for a few rounds, and you've seen everything. Other than that, the game offers great atmosphere, a hard party, and chasing high scores.

Overall, it's short and sweet, I recommend it.

This is the best turn based/tactical RPG I have ever played, without a doubt. The world truly feels vast and lived in. Every NPC you encounter has something to say and a few items to trade. Every corner of the map is filled with details, loot to find, enemy encounters (often with their own small mini stories and motivations), and fun interactions. You'll find a random statue in the wild, you discover you can solve a small puzzle to interact with it, and boom, it's one of the most memorable and funny parts of the game, just out there, randomly in the wild. You could have easily missed it (and I am sure many does!). Small things like this really make every moment feel special.

The story is filled with interesting characters, with their own motivations, stories, history, and have their own things going on completely detached from what the player is doing, making the world feel a lot larger than what you see. You'll help these characters, they will help you, and depending on your choices, and the people you help, the crew you make, the story will change.

It all feels larger than the sum of its parts, and there are a lot of parts.

The combat revolves around an "Action Points" (AP) economy system, and a special armor system where you can deplete either someone's magic armor or physical armor. This means that different encounters feel more unique, as a mage enemy might be really strong against magic, but weak against physical hit, it makes every encounter feel unique. There are many fun combos and synergies you can discover, and sometimes it really feels like you are cheating, only for the game to throw yet another curve ball at you, making what was previously an "insane combo, the devs probably didnt think you'd be able to do this" into a "Oh yeah, I totally need this, the enemy combos are way stronger!".

There is something so satisfying about doing a combo like "Okay, I will save some AP for the next turn, then the turn after I can do a move that spawns blood under me, making my blood moves stronger, then I can hit them with a move that removes their armor, then a move that makes them bleed, then finally a move that uses that blood to totally destroy them". It all synergizes so well, and the more you look into it, the better it gets.

With you being able to spec into as many classes as you want and learn pretty much any spell you can imagine, there are countless of ways to play the game, and a ton of strategies for you to discover. You can't see it all in one playthrough. For example, I used a combo that made it so when enemies walk, they take very heavy damage, then I used another spell to make them "Terrified", which will force them to run away on their next turn. These combos belong to different classes, and there are plenty of examples like these ones, there is so much to discover, use and abuse.

You can play as an assortment of different characters (or make your own), all of which have different main stories, different interactions with characters, and ways to play the game. Your party can be 4 of these characters, or you can make your own party from hired characters you find in the game. Depending on the characters in your party, characters will react differently to you. Some places might not welcome an undead character, while others may let you pass because one of your characters are a royal lizard. Some will straight up pick fights with you because you are an elf, and if you were to talk to that same character with a different character they might be all friendly and even have a quest for you. The world truly reacts differently to your characters, which is fun and must have taken a lot of development time.

All of this on top of a fantastic skill system, crafting system, exploration, character affinity, stealth systems and more. It is a complete video game, that has all the video game things, maybe except for the now common DLCs and Microtransactions (remember when those were controversial?). There is so much to this game that I know for a fact that if I were to play it again, I would have a whole different experience, despite my 170 hours of playtime.
For example, I barely engaged with the crafting system in the game, and the few times I did use it, I found I could craft incredibly powerful armor.

The only thing really holding this game back is some quality of life for certain things. There are many small frustrations all over the game, and they can sometimes add up. You have an endlessly large inventory with things you need to keep "just in case" (after all, did you use that key yet or was that for something you'll need in the future?), but no search bar. Some characters especially in the town squares repeat the same voicelines way too quickly, truly making them feel like bots, and sometimes the combat can be quite frustrating because the game does not properly predict what will happen (it might say your move costs 1 AP, but it spends 2, meaning you can't afford to do your move). Furthermore, enemies sometimes just cheat. They straight up don't follow normal game mechanics like cooldown for moves, or they can't be stunned despite not having stun immunity, or they can't be targeted from where you're standing but they can target you. It can sometimes make the game feel frustrating. This is mixed with the game giving you very exciting abilities near the end, which you never get to use. For example, near the end I received a "Control Voidwoken" spell, but I only ever encountered Voidwoken twice after that point, which was a huge shame.

My main other gripe with the game, which is quite funny considering I spent 170 hours to beat the game, is that there isn't more of it. I really wanted more, and I wish they would spend more time to flesh out certain aspects of the game. You have seen and probably learned all the spells you will need by the time you're halfway through the game. I wish the game would let you discover more spells as you get stronger. Some spells also require you to multi class, but it's literally "ehh, put two points into this other class".
Some story elements also get glossed over a bit near the end. There is a huge voidwoken build up and attack, but you don't really see any voidwoken. They tease you with giant voicwoken you never get to fight, and you almost have to wonder what happened to them all considering theyre a world wide threat. A certain important story character you meet near the end of the game is also just... glossed over. You have one conversation with them, then you fight, then the game is over. For such an important character it is very weird that they get so little screen time. I wish there was more. And hopefully there will be more in a Divinity 3.

My gripes aside, this is still such a fantastic game, and Larian have shown that they are truly the masters of turn based RPGs. My dream Larian game would be a game with Divinity's combat, but with even more spells, mixed with Baldur's Gate's cinematic camera and quality of life features like a searchable inventory.

Needless to say, this game is absolutely fantastic, I recommend it to all.

I am very torn on Another Crab's Treasure.. On one hand, it is a great looking game, with charm and love put into every aspect of the game, personality oozes from ever crevice, and the jokes constantly land. Scanning a random QR code in the main hub of the game only to get sent to a youtube video telling you that you've been "coconut malled" (mario kart wii) was honestly a highlight.

On the other hand, the combat is clunky, targeting does not always work, the camera does not cooperate, multiple actions share the same button (despite there being free buttons on a standard xbox controller), certain actions in the skilltree are straight downgrades (and there is no way around these upgrades if you want the later upgrades in the skilltree), frequent game-breaking glitches such as being teleported off the map, or bounce-pads shooting you at the speed of light to the other side of the map, and certain levels being big (and empty) just for the sake of being big makes for a game where you're constantly a little bit annoyed at something while you play.

The game also suffers from multiple quality of life issues. For example, when you make it to certain checkpoints, you probably want to take a step back and spend your currency to buy new upgrades, shells, and level up. Instead of having one hub world where you can do all of this, the game has 4 (though two of them at least connected). That means that you will have to fast travel to hub 1, walk to the second hub, then teleport to the third hub, and finally to the fourth hub just to get your daily shopping done. You will do this frequently, and it is such a big waste of time. This ties into how you upgrade your character; If you want to level up, you do that at any shell you find in the world. If you want to upgrade your skills, however, you need to go to a vendor. If you want to level up the skilltree, you need to go to another vendor. Why can't this be done in the shell? This would cut down on two of the hub worlds that you constantly need to visit. I am almost surprised you can lvl up your character at the shell, and that there is not a 5th hub world that only houses a character that is not relevant to the story at all, whose only purpose if to teach you that you can look into yourself to get stronger.

The gameplay itself, is serviceable. It is fine. It does not have particularly interesting movement for the platforming section, and the combat itself is watered down "fromsoft" type combat.
The issue with making combat so similar to something else, is that you invite direct comparisons, and unfortunately Another Crab's Treasure does not win any of the direct comparisons. Combat feels worse than Dark Souls, the parry mechanics are worse than Sekiro, and you don't have a lot of ways to mix up your gameplay as you are locked to one weapon for the entire gamel
That said, what makes this game stand out is once again the humor. You will fight a character that will pick you up, put you in a portable guillotine, your character will beg for his life, and it will instantly kill you. A character will look through random trash, find a magic wand vibrator, exclaim that "I have no idea what this even is" and try to whack you with it. Other enemies will be armed with tic tacs and try to shoot you with them, while others still will try to use a plastic fork and knife to eat you up.
It is fun, it is whacky, and you get to partake in this whackyness by equipping all sorts of trash as your shell. Use an F key from a keybard to defend yourself, or maybe a gacha capsule is more your style, or some used used medicine containers with some scraps left for you to consume. Or screw it, just put the amogus impostor on your back and call it a day, it for some reason has a ridiculously high defense stat.

Then you get to all the "packaging" surrounding this game. The story, the characters, the jokes, the music, it's all fantastic. I found myself just vibing to the music multiple times, not even playing the game or doing anything in particular, just enjoying the moment. This is why I am so torn on this game. I am so glad I got to experience all the charm, funny moments, attention to detail, passion and love put into this game, but at the same time itself I always felt like the gameplay itself wasn't that fun. At least it was easy and straightforward (compared to most soulslikes), so it never felt like a drag, but now that I have completed it and seen most of the game, I feel no drive to play again. I am kind of glad it is over, but I am also very glad it happened.

In conclusion, this is a very charming game with witty writing, funny jokes, great music and overall a fun adventure, however it is held back by not doing anything special in the gameplay department. The gameplay itself is just fine, but nothing to write home about. So if you are looking for more Soulslikes for the sake of great soulslike gameplay, I would not recommend this game; however if you are looking for a game to kick back, relax, and go on a witty adventure with, I recommend this game.

Rusty's Retirement is a cute "at the bottom of your monitor" idle game where you help Rusty build and maintain a farm. The game itself is fairly simple in its gameplay loop. You buy robots to maintain your farm so you can grow crops to buy more robots and more farm, repeat.

Overall, it's very cute, and it has helped spawn a new genre of "at the bottom of your screen" games. I love the concept and hope to see other games expand on it, but for now there is not too much to the game, I felt like I had seen everything after 2 hours, and not much more happened as I kept playing other than the crop being different and robots moving faster.

Despite the gimmick, I often found myself wishing I could fullscreen the game, or at least freely move where it sits. The game is also always "in focus" meaning that your other processes might not run as smoothly as you would like, if you want to for example play rusty AND another game at the same time.

This caused me to move Rusty to my second monitor where it could run in the background, while I could play a game on my main monitor, and this kind of defeats the point of a game that sits at the bottom of my screen, ad I could have any game on my second monitor.

Judging it purely as an idle game it is fine, though I have played other idles I had more fun with. This game gets a lot of charm points for its cute art and unique bottom of the monitor feature, but ultimately I wish it offered more.

Tekken 8 released, and man it was a fun game. Flawed, but fun. We all expect season 1 of a fighting game to be a bit questionable, but that's okay, they can fix it.

Then the "fixing" started, and it only got worse. Just as the "honeymoon" period starts to wear off, they add their first major patch, which added more bugs to the game, and they added the in-game shop, which includes "premium currency" systems to force you to spend more to buy less. In a $70 (for base edition) game. Ouch.

Okay, whatever, I'm sure they need one way to monetize their game, it's fine. Then they add their next major patch, where they broke several core systems related to the game (such as walls and floors, oops), and they added another layer of microtransactions: The battle pass. Wow, this is really beginning to sting, and the battlepass contains items that were free and included in previous Tekken games, they didn't even update the model to fit the art of the new game. In this patch, they also included some balance changes, but instead of reducing the numbers of the overtuned characters, they instead made system wide changes specifically targeting the character they wanted to nerf.
For example: Certain moves will trigger the floor to explode on certain stages, this is awesome and lets you continue your combo. One character could abuse this and extend their combo by forcing the opponent to lie on the floor, then explode the floor, this was too much.
Instead of making it so this character's move would not explode the floor, they instead made up a new system which is impossible for new players to learn: Certain moves explode the floor. However, if you are in the middle of a combo, it still explodes the floor, but not if your specific combo has the opponent lie on the floor, however, if they are lying on the floor without being in a combo, your move will once again explode the floor.

This nerfed the character, but in a game as complicated as Tekken, it has a ton of unexpected casualties, and many characters got unintended nerfs because of it. They have now made multiple similar system wide changes, instead of just changing the one problematic character, making the systems in Tekken incredibly complicated and extremely difficult for anyone to learn unless they are willing to get a Bachelor's degree in Tekken.

These changes are not thought through, and is frustrating to deal with. But whatever, I enjoy my character, I will keep playing.

Then they release their first DLC character (making this $70 game have 3 layers of microtransactions!).
This DLC was the last straw for me. This character is so braindead to play, people were making bots that only press 1 button on repeat (not moving, not thinking, just mashing the button on repeat forever), and it took them to Red ranks (this is basically Platinum in most games). While EVO Japan was playing, the biggest Tekken tournament to date, the DLC character spamming one button in ranked matches had almost 3000 viewers, EVO Japan had 9000 while Tekken was live. Embarrassing.
Now, this bot is pretty stupid, sure, but let's practice against it! I will simply download the replay of the matches where I encountered it. Haha, no. You need to BUY the character to even view the matches you played against him. You can also not select the character in training mode, or see their move-list so you can learn what type of attacks they have.
This means that if you want any chance of learning how to fight this character, you need to either find someone who has bought the character and let them punch you around for long enough, or you need to fork up the money so you can see their move list.
Not only that, but this DLC, as with every patch in the game, continued changing system wide mechanics for the worse, and breaking things along the way.

At this point, I quit the game. However, I kept watching and staying up to date, because I really wanted to play this game, I just could not deal with the shady business practices and rushed updates. The community was so down bad, the trust in the company was so low, that when Tekken announced their upcoming patches, they had to specify that balance patches will be FREE. Are you kidding me? What a steal! You'd almost think these guys tried selling framedata for money in the past (oh they did lmao).

There is no community trust, the developers are continuing to reduce the quality of the game, and almost none of the common complaints have been fixed yet. I have been holding off writing this review, but it has been 4 months now, and they still have not changed anything. It is such a shame.

I hope to give this game another shot a year from now. In the meantime I will be going back to Guilty Gear, which seems to only have gotten better with time.

Can you fry eggs ontop of Mount Everest?

I am still not sure, but what I am sure about is that Arctic Eggs is a fantastic experience. The style is immaculate, the music is chill, and the atmosphere is surreal.

The gameplay itself is split into two parts: Walking around talking to people, who say random one liners similarly to games like Sludge Life, you'll either find it hilarious or cringe depending on who you are, the second part is cooking (mostly) eggs. Both sides, as always.

Despite the simple idea, the game is great at throwing fun and unique obstacles your way, such as adding still alive fish to your pan, or having you dodge bullets (don't worry about it). Both of these gameplay segments make for a super fun and enjoyable experience that also doesn't overstay its welcome (3-4 hours average playtime). I would recommend this to everyone looking for something out of the ordinary that's also fun.

What an absolute joy it was to play this game. Despite playing it in the worst conditions imaginable (10 hour flight, crying baby in the background and sitting next to a very annoying old lady), I found myself absolutely entranced throughout the full game.

Walking through someone's memory, never truly knowing the full context of what you're seeing, then having to piece it all together in the end is truly satisfying. The music is also beautiful and elevates the experience to the next level.

Overall, I highly recommend. It is truly a game that makes you laugh and cry with ease, often at times where you least expect it.

What an absolute shame. MultiVersus had the biggest fighting game release on Steam, releasing with 150k concurrent PC players (not to mention consoles!), only to fumble and drop all of them almost immediately after.

They took the game offline, promising to re-release it when it's better and stronger than ever. Over a year later, and the game releases in an objectively worse state than it was originally, with only a few improvements and massive amounts of microtransactions, disgusting business practices and endless grinds.

Did you know it will take you 200(!!) games to level up a single time in the battlepass if you do not do their challenges (many of which are paid challenges)?

They have made singleplayer challenges where you can PAY to re-try the challenges if you lose, the devs took to twitter to explain that this was "never intended" and that it's a "bug", despite there being in-game tooltips explaining how buying lives work (lol). How much does it cost to get your lives back? $15. And that's only for the first time! The more lives you buy, the more expensive it gets, until you "max out" the price and it tells you to wait for a day until you can buy more lives again. You read that right, they made in-game tooltips, set up a system to make lives more expensive every time you buy them (which can only be bought in too small or too big packs of in-game currencies btw), wrote descriptions and guides for how these lives work, then they call it a "bug".

Many of their community features such as being able to toast great opponents have been either removed or made inconvenient to access, their menus all funnel you in to the shop, whereas in the previous version of the game, you could actually earn all the different currencies to purchase the things you wanted (like characters and skins). In the original release, you could see your own rank per character (you could see you're the 284th best Jake!), this has been removed, and ranked mode is still missing after 2 years. You can also not view your stats or compete on leaderboards like you could originally. It feels like more features have been REMOVED rather than added since 2022.

Everything you grinded for in the first version of the game has been removed, all your characters are lvl 1 again, all your currencies reset, and many players are reporting that characters they bought have been taken away.
You would get a "character mastery" skin if you played your character enough, these have been revoked, and the only way to get them now is by paying for them in the shop.

It is incredible that they launched this game twice, to hundreds of thousands of players, only to fall flat on its face both times. Player First Games have shown their true colors, and I agree with the community when they say the studio should rename to Money First Games.

Avoid this game