Shadow Warrior is a game that tries so much, but ultimately fail to excel at most of it. In a sea of fantastic boomer shooters like DOOM, Postal Brain Damaged, Amid Evil, and more, it gets hard to recommend a game like Shadow Warrior. While the story and writing is witty, and using the environment to kill is fun at first, it fails to be truly unique.

The guns are exactly what you would expect, enemies are cool looking but are generally either completely OK or frustrating to battle, and your coolest abilities have so long animations that halts your momentum that they are often not worth using. The grappling hook for example, makes you stand still for a bit, causing you to almost always take damage when using it on the hardest difficulty.

Killing enemies using the environment is fun at first, but it is not really versatile. You often can't do it unless you lure enemies in there, which takes time, is risky for you, and generally you would be better off shooting them. Even if enemies happen to be in the prime spot for environmental kills, you are often required to use the grapple to activate the trap, meaning you get to stand still and soak some damage first.

Where this game really shines is the unique weapons you can pull out of enemies. While not all of them are worth the effort, it is extremely fun and feels good to "glory kill" an enemy, rip out a part of them, and use it to kill other enemies. This is great and easily the best part of the game.

The graphics look great, the writing is funny, and gamefeel is alright. I would recommend if you are looking for more boomer shooters and you've played the best ones.

A cute looking tile based puzzle roguelite that has you move and throw blocks/characters around the world. It features some unique combining mechanics where you can remove blocks by throwing them together, sometimes rewarding you with loot for your efforts.

Overall a fun and somewhat entertaining game that has some replay value, though the random generation is not enough to make this something you want to come back to after you complete it properly.

Randomly generated and puzzles is not something I usually think work very well together. Generally speaking hand crafted puzzles feel better to complete. This game does a decent job, but you rarely ever get those "aha" moments where you finally figure out something great.

Overall, I would recommend only to puzzle fans looking for something unique. The art and music is fantastic.

A short but sweet action adventure full of charm, funny dialogue and a unique combat system where you need to be quick on your feet and use the environment to defeat your enemies.

The games does a great job of having unique enemies where you really have to prioritize your targets correctly to get through encounters. The different enemy combinations used really make for unique feeling encounters, despite there not being that many enemy types. The items and rooms themselves also make a huge difference in terms of how the encounter feels.

That said, this game is being held back by a few things.
Firstly, there isn't much incentive to explore. While there are plenty of secrets to find, they do not really offer anything, not are the ones I found particularly difficult to get to. They do not offer additional platforming challenges, rarely unique encounters, but instead a little reference or funny joke.

While the platforming (and movement in general) is pretty good, the game doesn't do a whole lot with it. Sometimes you will have an opportunity to swing from a rope or grab a pole in the battle arena, but it rarely offers utility mid battle, just running is almost always better as you still have access to your full moveset that way. I wish this aspect was explored more.

While this game has been very enjoyable, I wish they explored the movement system a bit more, and I wish there were more enemy types. That said, everything that is in the game is delightful, and the game had me smiling throughout the entire experience.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood manages to tell a beautiful story with unique and diverse characters, full of friendship, memories, drama, love and magic. Despite the short time you spend with each character, the writer is able to prop them full of believable personality, background, hopes, dreams and nightmares.

The game hooks you throughout the entire game. You always want to see who the next character is, what happens next, and what the next tarot reading will predict. You really get the feeling of not being able to put this down until you see the end.

While this is definitely one of the best written, and therefore most enjoyable experiences of 2023, it is far from perfect. The game has several issues which I will get into, but know that despite these issues, you feel like you can look past them while playing because of how enjoyable the game is overall.

-There are a lot of characters. This isn't bad in itself, but this makes it hard to write detailed about everyone. There were multiple times I wanted to learn more about a character, only for me to never see them again once their issue has been resolved.
-The game brushes over you getting into a romantic relationship. They kind of just show up through your window, say "I love you", and boom, you're in the same bed together. While it was predicted using magic that you would find love, it doesn't feel authentic. It kind of just happened, OK I guess.
-The game does little to explain certain large events. For example, you get the option to essentially become as powerful as a God. The game never explains what this means, and there is seemingly no change after you accomplish that goal. It felt like you accomplished your goal, so now the game is kind of over.
-Generally, what happened after the game ends? You get a sentence or two regarding the important characters, but the game does not show you what came of the sisterhood, how the new leadership really affects the cosmos.

Looking at these flaws of the game, one thing is clear. The game leaves you wanting more. Which is really the biggest compliment you can give a game after finishing it. You get invested in the story, you want to know more about everything, and the game does not necessarily always give this to you.

That said, everything that is there is great. The music by fingerspit is an absolute joy to listen to, and it fits seamlessly into every situation in the game.

I should note that I am not the target demographic for this game. It is a very progressive game that explores a lot of struggles and ideas I cannot personally relate to, like coming out of the closet. I am as boring as they come, a heterosexual white male. Despite me not being able to directly relate to these characters, I found myself liking them a lot. They are written in a way that make them believable, and while you may not be able to relate to everyone's problems and thought directly, their thoughts, feelings, and internal struggles is something I think anyone can relate to.

Overall, I enjoyed this game a lot, and this is definitely a game that will live in my head for a long time.

This is a visual novel that has several endings. Playing through the entire thing and earning every single achievement can be done is less than 1 and a half hour.

The game is honestly not bad, but it's not good either. The characters aren't really developed, nothing in particular is memorable, the art is kind of meh, while the rest is just alright. The main character is a self insert of YOU, and you also insert a character for the butler, whom you wish to romance. So I guess you should insert someone you have a crush on in real life? I dunno. It's not bad, it's only a dollar, gives about an hour of gameplay, but it doesn't do much. I honestly bought this game because I thought "My Lady" was a funny name.

Minecraft Story Mode, where to even begin? While I realize I am not the demographic for a game like this, my friend group found it appropriate to consume more than recommended amounts of alcohol and play through all of this game in one evening.

While the animation, presentation, voice acting and all of that stuff is good, the game is simply uninteresting or cringe. The personal drama between the characters don't feel real, and you always get the feeling everything will be forgotten when the plot finds it convenient for friendship to happen again, which always happens.
This game has some legendary moments, which will stick with you for a lifetime. My personal favorite is when the useless pet pig Reuben sacrifices himself to save the day. They try to create this really emotional moment where your character walks up to the dying Reuben and says their final goodbyes and thank yous before he finally succumbs. However, this is immediately followed by Reuben closing his eyes, poofing into smoke, and leaving behind a floating, rotating piece of pork. Absolutely legendary, I cannot describe the sudden, high pitched laughter and screeching that filled the room as all 8 of my friends who I tortured into joining me for this adventure watched an emotional death scene get turned into comedy gold in an instant.

So. Should you play this game? Probably not. But I can't say it was without good times.

This is one of those games that just makes sense. You boot it up with a squad of friends, you all cast spells, and the spells interact with each other. You are encouraged to have your spells collide with your friends' in order to create new, even more dangerous spells. I think my main issue with the game is that once you figure out how to create certain "answers" for any situation, the game is somewhat solved and it can be a bit stale if you rely on that one answer for everything. If you're lucky, you do not discover these answers as early as my friend group did.

This is definitely one of the must plays if you have a group of friends looking for something to play.

This is how you do it. Pure platforming fun, nothing more, nothing less. This is one of the shortest and sweetest platformers out there, and sparks that same feeling of childhood wonder as games like Super Mario Galaxy did for me back in the day.
While the game is simplistic in nature, it never overstays its welcome, and it finds new gimmicks to throw at you which keep you engaged and interested to see more.
The speed and momentum of the game feels just right, and if you're into playing a game multiple time, there are multiple characters to unlock and play as, all with unique abilities. We need more games like this one