Indie devs are criminals. Should be put to death for giving away games like this for free. Such is the case for The Big Catch: The Tacklebox by developer Filet Group. Among the insane announcement flood around the Summer Games Fest, this got lost in the shuffle, even though it deserves way more attention. The Big Catch: The Tacklebox is a Dreamcast style 3D platformer where you play as a cool crow dude equipped with a fishing rod exploring a vast desert. The inspirations taken from Rayman 2 becomes instantly apparent with the way everything looks. The twisting trees, the water, the way the climbable vine texture looks. Just like its big 90s inspiration, Big Catch gives off a colorful, dream like vibe. There is really nothing like hooking on to a sand worm and surfing through the desert to your next destination. And your destinations are of course all sick platforming challenges. This is in every sense of the word: a puzzle platformer, a quite difficult one at that. The game does expect you to learn the tech and use it to its full capacity.

The closest modern example I can give is probably last year's Pseudoregalia, although this game fells a bit less snappy. I really enjoyed the movement and loved experimenting with it in combination with the momentum based platforming. Big Catch wants you to think outside the box and often requires you to do things you don't normally think would work, but then they do. Like throwing yourself off a huge tower, hook shoting on to a grappling point and using the momentum from the fall in order to launch yourself further than you normally could. It kicks so much ass and those big eureka moments are the reason I fell in love with it.

The one sole criticism I have for this game are the checkpoints. Checkpoints are sort of frequent, with shortcuts that can be unlocked. The placement of the checkpoints is the bigger issue. There were a lot of times where the game just put checkpoints and shortcuts a bit too far away at the very end of a tricky section. It leads to more frustration than there needed to be, as I was forced to repeat platforming puzzles multiple times, simply because I kept messing up at the last moment. It also sucks that the game resets the world every time you turn it off, leading to shortcuts and opened doors getting locked off again. So I do recommend you clear out an area as much as you can before you end each play session. It's something I'm sure will be fixed in the final game.

There is a one of a kind game here, and I can not wait for the full release. And this isn't a short prologue or demo either, this is a fully fleshed out game. I have not collected everything yet, and I'm 6 hours in. Like I said in the beginning: It's nuts that they put this out for free and borderline criminal that I dont see more people talking about it. It's on Steam and if you have the means to play it, please do so. And yes, I know this was just me rambling about the game and not a real review, but I really wanted to get the word out on this. I'm gona go play some more Big Catch now, cheers.

(Edit: I have now collected everything, reached 100%. Great game. Got a bit lost when had to get the last few collectibles. Pro tip: Use the compass. Ball glowing red means coins are nearby, fish glowing green means fish is nearby. Also you can pull out the compass while your on foot by pressing down on the dpad. Your welcome)

Thank you to QuentTheSlayer for giving me the final push that made me play through Super Metroid.

The Super Nintendo was probably the ultimate time of refinement for Video Games. So many game series, that are now held up as timeless classics found their definitive formula on Nintendo's second console generation. Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy and of course today's subject: Metroid. Super Metroid is still considered by many to be the peak of the metroidvania genre, and it's admittedly strange to realize that I had never played it. Even as a huge fan of the series, I just always put it off to the side. I'll get around to it eventually. After all: In the same amount of time it would take me to get into Super Metroid, I could just replay Fusion for the 50th time. I haven't played Prime 2 in a hot minute. What's that shiny new Dread game that just came out ? And so on and so on. But then in 2024, I set aside the excuses, committed, and I can now say that I have finally finished Super Metroid.

Its hard to put into words how much of a mindfuck my first playthrough of Super Metroid was. This almost 30-year-old Super Nintendo game has you in a chokehold the moment the title screen appears. The pan across a quiet, dark laboratory. 1994. Nintendo. Presents. Metroid 3. SUPER METROID. Right there, with the bodies of dead scientist strewn across the floor and the baby metroid trapped in a glass tube, the title of the game towers in gigantic, bold letters. It's one of the most striking introductions to a Video Game I have ever seen. A statement, before you even press a single button.

Of course this strong in medias res opening is only possible due to the fact that Super Metroid is the canonical third entry of the series, continuing on from the ending of Metroid 2: Return of Samus. And the game does an excellent job of catching you up to the events of the previous games. In a moody monologue, Samus recounts her fight against Motherbrain in her first adventure, her mission to eradicate the Metroid species for good and her sparing the last baby Metroid at the end. She brings said baby Metroid to the Galactic Research Station Ceres. There, the baby Metroid is supposed to be further studied while Samus is off hunting another bounty. Of course, she barely makes it out the door before receiving the call that Ceres is under attack. Ridley and his space pirates have decimated Ceres in order to capture the last Metroid. It's here where Super Metroid first gives you control over Samus in an action packed and atmospheric opening. She blasts through the invading space pirates and storms into an inevitable confrontation with long time nemesis Ridley. After an early sneak peek at this late game boss fight, Ridley flees with the baby Metroid in his claws. Samus follows in hot pursuit and lands on the planet Zebes. The setting of the original Metroid. This series story telling has always been and would continue to be very subtle, but even this opening stands tall among its peers in terms of how much you can get across just through a quick opening text crawl and pure gameplay. Really, the recap from our badass heroine is the only dialogue you will get across the entire game, and yet it still manages to tell an engaging story as you make your way down through the underground tunnels of Zebes.

Zebes is what all metroidvania maps should aspire to be in my opinion. Isolating, with long, winding corridors and  incredibly distinct environments. This map is so well-designed that I rarely felt lost or directionless even when I wasnt exacly sure what my next step was. The map screen is there, but it does the bare minimum to give you any general information on the environment. Because it doesn't have to tell you more. The drive to explore and the invisible hand of the developers guiding you are enough. Very, very rarely did I find myself lost as to where to go next and the few times that the game had me stumped, I can attribute to my general impatients I have been trained on due to modern video games. If I spend more than 30 minutes figuring out the way forward, then it must be bad game design, right ?. Fuck you, David Jaffe. By paying close attention to the game, you can always intuit where your way forward is. It's a masterstroke of game design.

The other side of gameplay besides navigating the game world, is combat and finding upgrades. Because Samus isnt badass enough already. That was Metroids bread and butter from the very beginning really. Super doesn't hugely change the formula, but still excels in teaching you its mechanics naturally. The game has you collect all the now famous Metroid tools like Super Missiles, the Grapple Beam and so on, while always showing you how to use them with a reward that seems just out of reach, right after you got that shiny new upgrade. Again, all without a single interruption or textbox. If somebody had to nitpick any aspects of the gameplay, it would probably have to do with Samus jump and the way you switch through different weapon modes. Firstly: Samus jump arc is a weird one to get used to for sure, since she gets an unusual amount of air time for a 2D platformer. The standard jump, which can also be altered into a summersault forward, seems very stiff as well. It almost feels like the Castlevania 1 jump arc as if some weirdo happend to turn on low gravity. Weird maybe, but those quirks still very much lend themselves to the often tubelike level design of Zebes and I rarely had any problems with jumping up to ledges or across platforms. The second, more annoying nitpick would probably be how you switch weapons via the select button. It's an awkward solution that had me often fumble around when I wanted a specific weapon equipped, but it's not a dealbreaker either, just something I wished was a bit better by default. Oh, and there is a run button. Never forget that you have a run button. It had me stuck for a bit and you will thank me later, fellow non-manual readers. Those minor flaws aside, the gameplay is incredibly rewarding to master and once you do master it, the real meta game of Super Metroid begins. Sequence Breaking.

Again: It's an aspect of the genre that Metroid is already famous for and its the game that popularized it, but Super Metroid does it on a whole other level. This game has one technique in particular, one you unknowingly have access to from the very beginning, that is designed to break the game's intended progression. It's a tricky one to execute, and the game will teach it to you in an organic way at some point. Once you fully master it, you might as well throw all preconceived notions out the window that this game was ever linear to begin with. Already deep into my second playthrough, I feel the effects of playing at a higher level. Upgrades and bosses, that seemed so far away in the beginning, can now be acquired basically as early or as late as you want to. The genius decision of teaching you this high level play during your first trip through Zebes does wonders for replayability. Pay attention and the game will infinitely reward you for it. You might of course go to areas you're not equipped for yet, but if you persevere, you get the best abilities incredibly early. Risk vs Reward, entirely on the player's own terms. Genius.

I honestly didn't expect to sing this game's praises so much, and I still haven't talked about the incredible sprite work or the god tier soundtrack. Two aspects I can not find a single flaw in, and talking about them would have me repeating myself again with only superlatives. The game is one of the most gorgeous games I have ever seen, it's like a immaculate painting. The soundtrack gives me goosebumps just thinking about it, and taking the elevator down the Brinstar for the first time is already one of my top 5 magic moments of all time. There you go.

Saving my credibility for reviewing video games, whatever that is even worth, I should probably still mention my one big rage-quit moment. As no game is perfect, but Super Metroid is damn close. Maridia. Maridia fucking sucks and seems to be the one area where the developers couldn't hold back the urge anymore to design a cryptic hell maze. Not only is getting to Maridia a bullshit ordeal all on its own, actually navigating this oversized fish tank with all its invisible walls is a confusing slog. And god help you if managed to come here without the gravity suit, like i did. Now, try to figure out how to get back to dry land while Samus jogs across the ocean floor in slowmotion. Or hope your most recent save isn't too far away. Hey, there is this giant purple tube you can go up and down through, that is clearly showing you an entirely different area in the middle. Well forget that. Ain't going there yet, no matter how hard the game implies it. Finish off the underwater journey with two really sub-par bosses. Please just end me.

Alright. Despite the grueling stretch through the sludge waters of Maridia, despite every bone in my body telling me that now this supposed all-time classic has finally fallen to the rose-tinted nostalgia glasses of fanboys across the globe, it shinesparked back up like a phoenix and stuck the landing. More than that, it destroyed the landing pad and drilled itself deep into my heart to become one of my favorite games of all time. I already know this will get more than one playthrough in the near future, because Super Metroid fucking rules. Go play Super Metroid you cowards!

(Edit for the Hard Mode Update at the bottom of the review)

When it comes to Survival Horror, we seem to be in another golden age right now. The Puppet Combo games, Signalis and Alisa are only a couple of the popular titles to come out of the indie space in the last few years. All of them already highly regarded and entirly unique in their own right. And now 2024 has seemingly given us a fresh classic to add to that list with SFB Games newly released title Crow Country.

Crow Country puts you in the shoes of Mara Forest: sassy teenager and special agent on her way to the abandoned Crow Country amusement park. Upon arriving at the park, it quickly becomes apparent that this isn't exactly the safest place to be, as it tends to be the case in any horror story. Of course Mara still presses on in order to find the park's missing owner, the mysterious Edward Crow, while uncovering its dark backstory. If you played more than one horror game, then this setup will sound very familiar to you, in particular if you played Silent Hill 3. At the very least the setting and the attitude of its protagonist seem more than a little inspired by Heather and her horror trip on the PS2. It's good then that Crow Country isnt just a flat copy but manages to easily carve out its own identity. Survival Horror has always had a silly side to it, with its weird puzzles, contrived story lines and absurd unlockable items. In particular, Crow Country's spiritual big brother Silent Hill is famous for its cheeky secrets upon completing a first play through. There is still an unnerving atmosphere to the environments and you'll meet all kinds of sketchy characters, but the overall ton is closer to parody than anything. It really feels like a fun treasure hunt through a haunted theme park for about 80% of the game while the rest of its serious twists and revelations are reserved for the end. It all workes quite nicely in my opinion and I quickly learned to love Mara along the rest of the cast. Those who have played the game would probably now mention how predictable its main plot twist is, but I didn't mind it. The game itself seems to treat it more like a throw away gag anyway, making it fairly obvious from the very beginning. There is of course a whole other, better twist to the story, for those who are curious enough to piece together the clues. Thats all im going to say on that, without spoiling anything.

Speaking of curiousity, I think what got most people so curious about Crow Country is its look. Me included when I first played the demo during a Steam Next Fest. The style mixes the color choices of a Silent Hill, with the general chibi charm that made the original Final Fantasy 7 so memorable. What was used back on the PS1 out of necessity because developers still had to figure out hardware limitations, is used here as a stylistic choice. All the characters have this blocky look to them, clearly showing the connecting points between their limbs and coming off relativly simple in design. It not only works great as a charming throwback to PS1 era graphics but is also used to make each character distinct and recognisable. In a line-up of silhouettes, you would instantly be able to tell everyone apart based on poses and distinctive features. Enemies follow a similar design philosophies by being these very distinct but grotesque blobs and shambling, bloody corpses. They look like someone or something turned a human inside out. Its great. The environments are equally impressive, not lacking in detail at all compared to traditionally pre-rendered backgrounds. It doesn't matter if you're standing at the looming gate of the amusement parks entrance or try to get through a spooky hedge maze, there isn't a miss here. And the coolest part is the ability to fully spin the camera around, at almost all times during the game. You can always peer at the game at wich ever angle you prefer and everything looks like a diorama, a cute little playset of sorts. That is something I havent seen in any game before and im in love with it. And the ability to spin the camera around isn't just used as a gimmick either, it's cleverly given a gameplay purpose aswell.

When it comes to the gameplay, Crow Country is as traditional as a survival horror game can get, albeit with a heavy emphasis on puzzles. That is where the majority of the focus lies and where the ability to spin the camera is often used to suss out clues and secrets. To be perfectly clear: This game won't assault you with mind-bending brain teasers. Rather, SFB Games have made the very wise decision of handing out clever puzzles, that may have you stumped for a few minutes but never interrupt the flow of gameplay in the long run. Something a lot of puzzles focused games do wrong in my opinion, where you end up frustrated and just want to get the puzzles over with so you can move on to the next part. There is always have an easily understandable hook to it, never does it withold vital information, and you will always get a satisfying reward at the end. Its only one part of an effort to make Crow Country a very accessible game to everyone.

On the topic of accessibility: I have seen some people bemoan the lack of difficulty and the argument that this makes it a lesser game somehow, but I don't see the problem in making a genre accessible to new comers. Not when everything else is so rock solid. This is, in the best possible way, babies first survival horror game. The bones of combat and decision-making are still here, but without the looming threat of getting soft locked or getting stuck on bullshit puzzles. There is a limited hint system that will more or less guide you if you're stuck on the critical path, you can optionally turn on an extra life system, so you don't have to go back to your last save upon death. There is even an exploration mode if you don't care for combat.

Was it way too easy for someone who has played so many survival horror games ? Yeah, sure it was very easy, and ultimately it did hamper my enjoyment a tiny bit, which sparked a debate with myself as to what my final rating should even be. Do I take points away from Crow Country because of the lack of difficulty or not. In the end, I came to the conclusion that you can't always throw people into the deep end when it comes to new genres. There is a place for entry level survival horror, and I'm happy to welcome every new fan who might get into the genre through games like this. Besides, the developers have already posted a roadmap with various fixes and an additional hard mode. Once that comes out, ill update my review and bump up the rating, probably. Anyway, go play Crow Country, it's a cool little game about spooky crows.

(Hard Mode Update: So SFB actually managed to drop the new update pretty shortly after release, and I'm happy to say that this adds just about everything I wanted to see. After initially dismissing the hard mode as a bit of a nothingburger update, this luckily bumps the difficulty up to a significant degree. About halfway through the game, I found myself in the big old Survival Horror ammo shuffle. No trash can diving and vending machine kicking for you anymore young lady. Resources are now actually limited and enemies are way more aggressive. Having played through the game twice already, I had new moments of surprise where I had to stop and assess my current situation. I found myself considering the clever use of traps much more, and removing the ability to run whenever you're close to death adds a lot of tension to exploration. The game frequently threw me for a loop as I had to pay much closer attention to enemie placement and traps when doing trips back and forth across the map. Knowing where some of the secrets were hidden became a big advantage. When enemies are so much faster than before, every extra magnum bullet and weapon upgrade does seem like a godsend. If I had to nitpick one tiny thing, it's the fact that I would have liked to have seen more survival staples added, like limited saves and item boxes. It's not a huge dealbreaker and the rating system has been changed to punish frequent saves, but as it stands now the game doesn't really suffer from their absence. Together with the new unlockable item for beating Hard Mode, which can now be enabled in the main menu once you unlocked it (Thank you, why the fuck wasn't that there from the beginning ?), I now consider Crow Country the full survival horror package. Now, both perfect for horror game newcomers and veterans alike. Definitely one of the best games I played in 2024 so far, and one I'm will be happy to return to in the near future. Score gets bumped up of course, good job SFB games. More developers should listen to feedback from fans like this).

As a narrative adventure game, Mémoire 0079 is quite an interesting concept. Login in as a player into a fictional terminal to uncover reports about a distant future and exploring both sides of a war. A narrative focused in on two major players during this fictional sci-fi conflict: Vega Hawthorne of the United Earth and Raya Sokolova of the Ceresian Republic. Both held up by their respective governments as great heroic figures, through propaganda and personal ideologies. It's all a novel idea, pulling your sympathies in multiple directions on whose story you might read first. Well, but here can we get into the biggest issue with the game, the fact that it's infact nothing more than a surface level novelty.

There is no real game to speak of here, just walls of unwieldy text to click through and mountains of hyperlinks that pull your attention away from reading what seems like it could be an engaging story. Just to be stoped dead in your tracks while reading in order to look up words and events you really have no context for and there for might not even care about right away. I know that is the idea and the game's own web page describes itself as "a unique narrative adventure game about exploring a wiki-like interface", but I fell like if you want to fully engage the reader into your world, it helps to have a clearer structure to the events being told. You can still have all the gimmicks of personal logs, redacted sections in government documents and military propaganda. Maybe have some real time email traffic or chats you can respond to popping up on the side as you browse the wiki. Having you engage with the world in a tangible way, and perhaps even being able to make a choice for what side your sympathies align more.  All in all, the most important aspect would be reducing the amounts of hyperlinks. Even just including a separate glossary on the side to pull up would help. In my opinion, it's better to make the broad strokes of your Universe as basic and understandable as possible and then you can bombard your audience with the more complex stuff later. The Universe is still interesting, mind you, there is potential here, but it's the dialogue between characters where the game ultimately shits the bed.

Throughout many of the personal logs and transcripts present here, these two warring factions feel less like opposing cultures and more like drunk discord mods. It's the clearest evidence of to the fact that if you want to make a distinct fictional universe, you need to put in some effort in to establishing a culture and a way of language. Especially if the main point of your story is to contrast the two factions against each other. I don't think Captain Picard encountering the Borg for the first time and trying to contact the Federation about the immediate danger would have had nearly the same impact as it did, if they're back and forth dialogue mainly consisted of “Naaaaah”, “lol”, “lmao” or “can we talk about the fact that they suck shit”. Not quite as impactful I would say.

If I had to pull up one last positive at the end, it probably be the presentation. It's all presented quit nicely through the UI of an old school computer terminal, with atmospheric background tracks. Although I would have liked to have more tracks overall, having some pages be completely silent while the next one suddenly ear blast you with a loud background track was an odd experience. Overall this was a neat project, that needed about 5 more rewrites and revisions. It's free to play in your browser anyway, so there is no harm in checking it out and having a laugh at it atleast. Maybe the next one will be better, always possible.

Reaching the end of a trilogy is always exciting to me. Ideally, it's the conclusion of all the previous lessons learned and the moment everything gets tied together into one satisfying bundle. The PS1 is probably the console I think of the most when it comes to looking back at trilogies by single developers, simply because it had so many different ones during its life-span. Crash, Spyro, Resident Evil and even to some extent Final Fantasy. I think there is something special about seeing a game series in different stages of refinement, clearly being able to observe how a developer's ideas evolve over time. And yes, of course Tomb Raider went through that aswell. With the continued smash hit of TR2, Lara Croft was now without question video game royalty and Core Design was yet again given no breaks in pumping out another sequel for publisher Eidos Interactive. Setting aside the undoubtedly horrid working conditions at Core Design during the development process, I find it once again incredible how TR3 released only a year after its predecessor. And after my new-found love for this franchise was only reinforced by how much I enjoyed TR2, I was excited to jump into Lara's third adventure.

Sadly, as you can already guess from the rating, this turned out to be a massive disappointment. As the hours passed and the downward spiral of bad level design began, I became more and more miserable having to put up with everything Tomb Raider 3 was throwing at me. I was worn down and finally broken when I reached the end. I don't want this to be a rant about how much I hate this game. I still do, but there are so many fantastic qualities here that I can not even stoop so low as to call this a lazy sequel. Core Design really cared. It's just that all the visible care and love gets utterly crushed under the weight of unfair difficulty and a lack of polish, most likely due to razor tight deadlines along with an overworked staff. So let me go through the positives first before I start falling down the rabbit hole that has become my absolute hatred for this game.

Tomb Raider 3 has the best locations in the series so far. There is an incredible leap in art design at display here. Be it the opening trek through the jungles of India, the massive canyons in Nevada or looking out over the rooftops of Nighttime London. Levels feel lived in, in a way Tomb Raider 2 was still struggling with. The updated engine makes everything look so much less blocky, which the designers take full advantage off. I love the lighting, the colors and the great texture work. The atmosphere is so good, and I wish more games would take what Core Design accomplished here as an example. Really, in terms of atmosphere, TR3 doesn't miss even once. I love just standing in these maps and soaking it all in, ready to be pulled along into more adventures. It helps of course that the soundtrack is amazing aswell. There is a tone of ambiance to each location, of course classic series leitmotifs return and new tracks have been added that round everything out. It doesn't matter if it's discovering ancient ruins or if you find yourself face to face with horrifying creatures. It always fits, and I'm in love with the overall sound of TR3.

When it comes to the story, we find our favorite adventurer once again on the trail of a mysterious artifact. While on a treasure hunt deep in the jungles of India, she encounters a scientist named Dr Willard. He is looking for the missing pieces of a meteor that crashed down on earth millions of years ago, is responsible for having whipped out the Dinosaurs and starting the chain reaction of modern evolution. Supposedly these pieces also contain mysterious powers, once even being worshiped by Polynesian trips for their god like properties. And that's all we need to trot across the Globe. It's a dumb story even for the schlocky standards of classic Tomb Raider, but I still very much enjoyed it. The increased focus on cutscenes and Lara having more fun interactions with different characters helps the story flow much better than it did previously. This finally feels like a continues narrative and not just a semi connected sequence of video game stages. There is of course the obvious issue in how Lara has now been fully reduced to nothing more then what can only be described as a full on sociopath. More than ever before, she is an absolute bitch that cares about no one but herself and is willing to kill anybody that just so much as glances at her wrong. I'm still somewhat fine with her because the point was always to have an uncompromising action heroine, but previous games at least gave her some shred of humanity. The absolute girl boss attitude I fell in love is still present, but there is certainly a discussion to be had about crossing the line from girl boss to unlikeable cunt. This crosses that line way to often. TR2 is also guilty of this to a lesser extent, but toed the line in keeping her likeable much better in my opinion.

When it comes to combat, I'm happy to say that Core massively overhauled their approach to how you fight enemies. The fundamental controls are the same, but enemie encounters are spread out way smarter. Gone are the days of spawning goons right on top of the player.  There are often spots you can jump to that give Lara a clear advantage, and even late game foes can be taken down with just a bit of effort and only the standard handguns. And that's basically all I wanted to see, and I'm glad they at least took the time to improve an aspect of the series that desperately needed a revision. Croft Manor now has been expanded with a shooting range as well. This version of Croft Manor is for sure the best one. Many secrets to find and all the tutorials you could ever need. Lara's home is practically its own giant level now. Once again I fully recommend you play around in the tutorial not only because it's a lot of fun but because it will also helps in familiarizing you with the expanded move set. Lara can now crawl, grab on to certain ceilings in order to use them as monkey bars, and is able to use a short dash that can be ended on a quick roll forward. These added options are mostly used to great effect, but I will admit that the dash stays fairly underutilized. There are only very few spots where it's actually needed, and even then I find those challenges more annoying than anything else.

And that's about all the positives I can think of. For all the love I can express for TR3, it just wouldn't be honest if I omitted all my frustrations and all the reasons why I ultimately came away with the conclusion that this is simply a very bad video game.

Starting off with the basic structure: You're now allowed to pick between locations in between the opening chapter and the finale. What sounds cool on paper, turns out to be a nightmare in reality. The three places you can pick from: Nevada, the South Pacific Islands and London vary so wildly in complexity and challenge that you're most likely going to fuck yourself over if you happen to choose wrong. Pro-tip: Always start with Nevada. I didn't, and it screwed me over hard by the final stretch. Nevada contains the easiest and most enjoyable set of levels, and most importantly: There is a similar bit to TR1 and 2 where all your items will be taken away from you, as Lara is once again captured by armed guards. Unlike previous games there is a high chance you will not get most of your inventory back, meaning that if you happen to pick Nevada last, you might lose hours of collected guns, ammo and med packs. At that point, you are just stuck desperately searching for scraps during the final 4 segments of Antarctica. It's a horrible design decision that I despise with a passion, and they should have either ditched the level select entirely or put actual effort in balancing each locations difficulty. And while the South Pacific Islands are a mostly tolerable set of levels, London is where the game fully backflips into of pit of rusty spicks.

London is a confusing labyrinth of dark hallways that loop around in the most unintuitive ways. I got lost so many times just backtracking, not knowing what my goal even was, and finding crucial progression items in spots that made me scream in agony. Of course, one of the keys needed to progress in on top of a mining drill you just escaped from in order to not get crushed to death. It's not like every sane human being would see the section now occupied by the giant death drill as blocked off for good. Add to that weird angled jumps that shouldn't work, but sometimes just do, and hard to make out wall texture that are supposse to signal climbable surfaces. Trust me, you will run past those surfaces for a couple of hours before looking up a guide and then promptly feeling the primal urge to buy a gun along with a time machine in order to pay Core Designs studio a friendly visit back in the late 90s. All that misery and I haven't even mentioned the vehicle sections yet. Oh, the fucking vehicles. TR2 had the exact same issue, but the meaningful difference is again that this was limited to only 2 sections. We had a boat, that controlled fine, and a snowmobile that controlled like shit. TR3 on the other hand has at least one vehicle for each location. There is an ATV, a kayak, a weird underwater robot, a Donkey Kong style minecart ride and another boat. I don't know which one is the worst for me, but it has to be a tie between the kayak and the minecart. Paddling the kayak through the rapids of the south pacific rain forest is pure luck, as you can't really control it and are at the mercy of the game's geometry in order for Lara to not straight up smash into a pile of rocks and drown. The minecart on the other hand will make you randomly fly off the tracks if you happen to pull the break at the wrong time, that is if you even know where to fucking go in the nightmare labyrinth known as the RX Tech Mines. Either way, the conclusion is always: try to get somewhere, die, reload, repeat that step about 50 times per stage until you get that one lucky try that lets you progress.

I hate Tomb Raider 3. I can't recommend it to anyone ever. The final boss was a giant spider mutant that makes you run around in a circle for 40 minutes so you can pick up some shinny rocks. Watch the game end with Lara shooting a totally innocent Helicopter pilot in the face and a shot of her ass while the credits play. Fuck this game, I need to game something good next.

In Video Games, the line between a knock off and an innovative continuation is often razor fine. The amount of great games labeled with the words Doom Clone or God of War rip off over the years are more than enough evidence for that. The very nature of the medium being interactive makes them benefit from clear structures and system after all. Structures and systems that can be easily applied across multiple titles, so it's no surprise you would borrow heavily from existing elements. Even with all that, there is an understandable negative reaction to seeing whole UI designs and set pieces shamelessly ripped off. And I have always struggled the question if I should just condemn that or look past it as embarrassing inspiration. Lies of P was the ultimate test for me, as someone who has spent hundreds of hours with FromSoftware's flagship series and knows a lot of its ins and outs by heart. I was rolling my eyes at similarity just for the sake of it, only for the game to turn around and smack me across the face with the answer: Yes, you can not only heavily ripoff your idols, you can use that as a springboard to transcend them.

As the first big budget title of Korean developer Neowiz, Lies of P takes from the literary work of Italian author Carlo Collodi's famous Pinocchio story. Although this is less of a 1:1 adaptation, and more a jumping off point to take the moral lessons of that story in order to explore deeper themes like ethics and transhumanism. And the further I descended into the city of Krat, the deeper the rabbit hole got, as I noticed the literary references and themes pile up to construct a cohesive world with immaculate world building. From I what I could find, this seems to be writer and director Choi Ji-Wons first big budget gig and I can only applaud his skill at weaving an absolutely inspired setting out of what is a patch work job of his big inspirations. There are clear references to the works of Oscar Wilde and the sci-fi stories of Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick. Even classic anime like Full Metal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell find their way into the city of Krat. Of course, there are also countless parallels to FromSoftwares own catalog with themes of mortality, how some are willing to seemingly doom the entire world for their ability to cheat fate and if there can even be some kind of some kind of moral or ethical justification for those very decisions. It's masterfully crafted, and I'm far from done sifting through its dense lore, a feeling I honestly haven't experienced since first diving into the original Dark Souls trilogy.

Just as important as the lore in a game, is its soundtrack wich turned out to be a mixed bag. And I can clearly separate the music in two very distinct categories. There is of course the non-diegetic soundtrack, which consists of your typical biblical choirs that play during big boss fights. Their epic, their bombastic and honestly something I'm really tired of. I couldn't pick them out of line up even if you held a gun to my head. I miss the days when boss themes in this genre had interesting compositions, like the theme of Lord Gwyn or Seath the scaleless from Dark Souls 1. What is exceptional however is the diegetic music played throughout the game. There are vinyl records to collect that can be listened to in the hub while you do your typical busywork like level up or weapon upgrades. They can also be heard throughout various places in Krat. Fitting with the city's theme of being heavily inspired by french culture, they consist of classical melodies with french lyrics, actually sung by Korean Artists. Which gives them an additional lair of other worldliness while you traverse the ruined streets of Krat. It's a style that I would love to see composer Yeakun Yoo develop further if he hopefully sticks with composing another Video Game.

On the gameplay front, Lies of P is also the closest one can get to ever matching FromSoftware's Souls formula. It's a true grab bag of all the modern FromSoftware mechanics. From the basic 1 vs 1 combat against bigger foes, to the aggressive tug of war that was introduced in Bloodborn that encourages you to get health back by fighting aggressively. Mechanical Lies of P is more than excellent. It's finally a soul-like that puts heavy weight behind your build decisions. To the point where the game makes it incredibly easy to respec your character. You're incentivised to experiment with all the options given, while also immediately teaching you the benefits of learning how to get enemies to stagger and parry their attacks. From increasing the chance of giving enemies fatal hits, to being able to negate damage entirely and even breaking their weapons. Of course, your weapons can break as well, with you having to repair them mid-battle leading to tens moments. This creates a wonderul tug of war where you're on equal footing with most enemies. I enjoyed those moments immensely where you decide to stick with parrying a flurry of attacks, get them to stagger for a fatal blow and using his recovering time to repair your weapon before jumping back into the battle. The dodge roll does exist, and can even be upgraded further, but unlike its inspirations it tends to be entirely situational. There is a prosthetic arm as well, ripped straight from Sekiro, that opens additional combat options. Among other things, you get a hook shoot to pull enemies towards you, a flamethrower and an arm canon. This result in a variety list of combat options while still being able to design everything around a few core mechanics. And those mechanics are used in some of the best boss fights in my opinion, with them even outdoing a FromSoftware staple. Twice. A 4 vs 1 fight that doesn't suck and gives you the option to even the odds in multiple ways. If I had to pick, those fights might be my overall favorites in the game, both in how they are build up from the very beginning of the game and then when the game finally pulls the trigger. It's the pinnacle of what I think Lies of P can achieve when it moves beyond its slavish devotion to Miyazaki's work. With spectacular results.

The other side of that devotion is all the parts where the game's falters, often in the exact same ways as Fromsoft. I found most of its last third to be a bland slog. Locations that conceptually should be fantastic, but fall flat in execution. In a game based around the concept of living puppets and philosophical questions about what makes one human or what a conscience even is, a graveyard of discarded puppets should be amazing. But it turned out to be one of several uninspired locations that had me just run through them blindly, not regretting that decision for a second. And one of several poison swamps Lies of P throws you into aswell, bringing the game's stellar quality down for me. Myazaki really put the brainworm in developers heads with his poison swamp obsession for all eternity. Please, stop it, get some help.

And as overall polished as combat is, even Neowiz could not iron out all of the typical souls like issues. I'm willing to cut them some slag as it's their first big title, but in the last third these issues just piled up in a way I could not ignore anymore. The camera getting stuck in smaller areas, enemies that spam you with status effects and predictable ambushes that stopped being surprising 10 years ago. If it was just a single area, that be fine, but it's a consistend drop off in quality right until the very end of the game. It really is a case where the setting and gameplay systems carried me through to the “final boss”. I'm saying final boss in quotes because I didn't actually get to fight the true final boss. For some reason, Neowiz decided to grab one of the worst decisions Fromsoftware themselves made in Blooborn and copy it. Hiding the real final boss behind an arbitrary decision with no warning, that you can't go back on. Setting aside the fact that NG+ seems to add some more lore elements and gear, from what little I played at least, I think locking a main path story boss behind another full play through has never set right with me. I just think its bad design. And I really was going to lower the score based on that alone.... Then the post credit scene happened. Needless to say, I'm beyond excited for Neowizes next game. It's a stinger hinted throughout all the game, and then they just confirm it with “yep, we are doing THAT” during the post credit scene. I'm here, my wallet is ready.

Being a fan of Nintendo can be tough sometimes. I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom Wario was as much a part of childhood as Mario. Be it when I was borrowing the first few games from my older cousins, playing the hell out of my own copy of Wario Land 4 on the GBA, or enjoying the many spinoffs he was front and center in. Wario was always there, until Nintendo decided he wasn't anymore. As the Mario games shifted more and more into a heavily protected mega franchise, Wario had to go. Mario's greedy, smelly rival was shuffled off to the eternal spin off mines. The way of almost all Nintendo IPs of course that aren't profitable enough, whatever the fuck that means in shareholder land. Luckily, Indies have given us many, sometimes even better substitutes to whatever Nintendo isn't willing to do anymore. And in 2023, a bit out of nowhere, we got another great one: Pizza Tower.

The devs at Tour de Pizza indeed created the ultimate answer to the question: Where did Wario Land go ? Apparently it turned into an awesome 2D platformer where a funny Italian man, with serious anxiety problems, fights an Evil Pizza Face trying to nuke his restaurant. Obviously.
And that is all presented through an absolute wild art style. An amazing art style. Many have compared it to old 90s cartoons drawn in MS Paint, but I can't really agree with that. For me, it seems a lot more like it's going for mid 2000s adult swim shows and Newgrounds cartoons. A bit like Super jail or Mr Pickles. The kinda off- model drawings that throw away smooth line work and continuity in its individual frames for a much faster, chaotic style that feels like you're watching a painting melt on acid before your eyes. And just like its inspirations, Pizza Tower still excels in actual animation quality. It's insane how many individual poses and expressions fill the screen at any moment, along with the movement in the gameplay. Peppino himself gets a giant TV on the top right that is shifting all the time to new hilarious expressions, all depending on what's happening to him at that moment. For sure just a giant, well earned flex by the devs.

The soundtrack accompanying his crazy pizza adventure is also one of the best I have ever heard. Its almost impossibly diverse with dark humming undertons flawellesly going into a driving beat in levels like Dont Make a Sound or entering Crust Cove and hitting you with music that wouldnt at all be out of place in Jet Set Radio. A lot of these songs stay in my head long after I closed the game.

And while this amazing soundtrack is playing you'll be air dashing with Peppino all over the place trying to reach the end of each Level. Just like Wario Land 4, when you hit the exit switch, this time not in the form of a weird frog statue but as the weirdly creepy looking John Pillar. Who's a Giant Pillar with a Human face that is holding the Pizza Tower together, of course. You're then promted to run back to the exit before the timer runs out or be chased to a game over by the games villain, Pizza Face. The first time in each level is always an anxiety inducing dash as you try to grab all the collectibles you missed while going faster than sonic could ever dream of. If your like me, you'll probably still get a bad letter grad like C or D even. But that's the other beautiful thing in Pizza Towers design: How complex its move set is and how good you become at it if you're willing to put in a bit of work. It's honestly a god like feeling when you eventually understand it and fly through the stages with the goal of reaching the top ranking. Dash through the metal block, up smash, get the secret, fall out the bottom, don't forget to get the Janitor.... It's so awesome. It must be how speedrunners or fighting games players feel when they reach their apex skill level. That said: I can't exactly claim I'm that good at it. As much as I wish I was, I will probably forever stay in the A to S tier ranking. The highest you can get is P, which requires a full run of the level, never losing your combo, then finished the second lap while the countdown is ticking down and beating each of the 3 hidden stages. Not to mention you're ranked again in total at the end of the game. It's a lot, and it already took me hours to just P Rank the first world. I think I'm good with leaving that to the professionals.

I'm just so glad Pizza Tower exists. An incredible game that just had even more content added to it via The Noise Update. An entire new character to play as with his own move set to learn and tons of new costume animations. Needlessly to say, my conclusion is that Pizza Tower is absolutly goated and makes me question if I even still need Nintendo. Seriously, just sell Wario to Tour de Pizza, they would do my favorite yellow garlic enjoyer justice for sure.

In many ways, Tomb Raider 2 represents a quantum leap forward for the series, and it's the title that cemented Lara Croft as an icon of pop culture. The first one build a foundation of glob trotting adventures, the sequel erected a monument. A quickly glued together monument as I soon found out. A monument that manages to amaze you but dont look too close or it will clearly show its many cracks due to a blazingly fast dev cycle. With design decisions that lead me to absolute controller snapping frustration at times. I was still determind to see it through to the end, be it do to my new found love for the first game or my general couristy for retro games. And as much as TR2 turned out to be a very cruel mistress, I wanted to see for myself why so many fans see this as the peak of the series.

Tomb Raider 2 starring Lara Croft has you follow the British adventurer to the Great Wall of China, where she hopes to uncover a mystical Chinese dagger. Upon finishing the first level, we are treated with a similar cutscene to the end of the first game's stage. Lara is ambushed by a henchman, and we get a brief exchange explaining what the goal of the rest of the game is going to be. Turns out theirs a Venetian cult after the Dagger as well, led by a man named MARCO BARTOLI! So the race is on to find the artifact before they do. The story is more fleshed out than before, but not by much in my opinion. There is more of a through line for the levels, but by the end Core Design have made it clear that this is only a vehicle to drive the exploration. You are here for the badass Girl on the cover and her no fucks given attitude. You bought the game to explore spectacular locations and shoot bad guys, and that's what your getting.

And spectacular locations they are indeed. Tomb Raider 2 tops the first game in big ways. From the Great Wall of China in the opening to giant underwater ship wrecks, the leap in quality is honestly incredible. The latter being my absolute favorite level in the game. Many people may pick Venice or the Temple of Xia as their number one but for me, it's the Maria Doria. Swim to the bottom of the ocean and enter an upside down wreck of a cruise liner ? Get out of here, that's too good. It represents the absolute gold standard Core Design can achieve with excellent level design. They really have managed to strike a great balance of linear levels and sprawling key hunts the player can just get lost in. Other highlights include the entire set of Venice stages, the Barkhang Monastery and the mad gauntlet when returning to the Temple of Xia. The atmosphere once again kills across all the levels. The finale in the Temple of Xia is especially strong, and it also represents the perfect segway to talk about the best and worst aspects of the gameplay.

There has been an overall increase in difficulty, and it expects much more from the player in terms of knowing Lara's improved move set. Croft Manor has therefore been greatly expanded. There are better opportunitys to test your skills in high stress situations with additions like the new assault course, and the manors many new secrets. I highly recommend you not skip this tutorial stage, not only because it will help teach you the controls, but also because it's a tone of fun. Don't forget to lock the butler in the freezer. Going into the actual levels though, as much as I applaud the new movement options, midair roll and all, the level design often seems to utterly hate you. There are many, many instances of traps you can't possibly see coming unless you died to them at least once. A specific slide in Offshore Rig comes to mind. Where Lara will slide straight into a spike trap unless the player knows to slide down the exact right way the designers intended and grab the ledge. Your ability to tolerate the many similar situations in almost every level is what will make or break the game for a lot of people in my opinion. I can also extend that olive branch of shit to the less than stellar vehicle segments. The boat in Venice was a neat idea, but I have to give a big shout-out to the fkn snowmobile in Tibetan Foothills. A seemingly weightless snowmobile made out of paper and fueled with dynamite that loves to send you speeding off cliffs when you just want Lara to go in a straight line. Hope you saved a lot. Tibetan Foothills is by far the worst stage in the game, and it even manages to be the shining lowpoint for another bad aspect of TR2: The combat. Combat needed serious improvements, Combat has in fact seen no improvements. Pretty much all it comes down to is that they increased to amount of enemies present in each stage aswell as how much ammo they tank. You do have more weapons now, like the M16 and Grenade Launcher, but that doesn't help when litteral armies of angry Italian men, various wildlife and ancient Chinese warriors have it out for you. You will see many familiar scenes of Lara being pushed into corners, riddled with bullets and getting speared to death followed by reloading. Hope you saved a lot.

Even all that controller snapping frustration, I still came away loving the game more than the original by the time I reached the surprisingly cheeky ending. Maybe I contracted a sever case of stockholm syndrome but I think it once again speaks volumes about Core Designs masterful ability to make absolutely engrossing levels, a compelling main character and a journey that clearly showed me why Lara's fan base has stayed so loyal to her. Tomb Raider 2 kept me deeply hooked like no other game and while I'm still going to take a break from the series for a bit, I can not wait to return and see what Tomb Raider 3 has in store for me.

Wtf even is reality ? Was this always this shit ? Back when I had a PS4 but no money to buy new games, I loved Old Blood. I played it all the time, found every secret and beat every difficulty. Maybe it really was the fact that I only had like 4 games for the console. Or maybe my standards of what I think is good have improved significantly. Either way revisting Old Blood was a bad idea. I found it offensivly bad in how it feels to play and the levels design is trash. Im giving 1 point to the game because the writting and art direction is still really good. Man, now im worried for that Indiana Jones game.

Cultural osmosis is a funny thing. I, like many, only know about Lara Croft and her adventures through the media surrounding her, even though we never really played much if any of the games. I myself always had the firm impression that it was some kind of trashy Indiana Jones knock off with a sexy female lead or something of that nature. Probably a bit outdated, coasting on nostalgia for the original PlayStation titles. I had only ever dabbled in some of the PS2 games, seen the first movie, and got roped into playing the 2013 reboot. Admittedly, of my experiences with the franchise, Anniversary, the remake of this first game, was a game I really fell in love with. It's the starting point where my perception of Tomb Raider started to shift into something I became more and more interested in. Critical in the second phase of that process was discovering Youtube channels like the wonderful Steve Of Warr, seriously underrated creator, check him out. He gave me a good old case of talking so passionately about a topic he cares about, that it started to infect me with the energy to become a fan myself. I now really wanted to know what Tomb Raider was all about and why it left such a deep mark on gaming. Lucky for me, I had previously purchased the entire classic series on GOG for like 5 bucks. So I installed the automated PC fix and started Lara's very first adventure.

And just like I wrote in my first impression, I'm really impressed how much I dig this game. I might even go as far as to say that I love it. There is an absorbing atmosphere to the original Tomb Raider I havent felt in any game before. Exploring these locations feels like you're setting foot in places that hasnt been touched by humans in centuries. Both in a beautiful and unnerving way, when the silence is suddenly puncture by the sound of an enemies roar. I can now feel why so many people have childhood nightmare stories of sitting in front of their PS1 only to turn their TV off in horror as a vicious T-Rex suddenly stomps around the corner in Lost Valley. It even got me, despite the fact I knew it was coming. That really extends to all locations, and I can't say that there was a miss across the entire game atmosphere vise. Be it the structures of St. Francis' Folly or the final home stretch in The Great Pyramid, it was all excellent.

You control Lara through these Levels via tank controls. In 2024, a horrifying discovery for some for sure, but quit genius if you look back on what hardware Tomb Raider originally came out on. The PS1 had yet to introduce dual analog sticks and PC was restricted to keyboard and mouse, so you could easily design controls that work for both. In combination with Core Design's decision to structure levels on a strict grid, the game allows for extreme precision platforming while remaining immensely fair. You know at almost all times where Lara will land or how many steps she will take upon pressing the D-pad. The result is a game that delivers everything promised in the opening cutscene, with more freedom of movement than most games today. Combat sadly doesnt met that high water mark, with the limited camera not being able to keep up with enemies that love to poke Lara to death while she's stuck in a corner somewhere. It's by far the worst aspect of Tomb Raider, and by the time I reached Atlantis I was ready to strangle somebody. Atlantis was also the point where I felt a worrying trend come up, of the devs simply hating my guts. The final stretch is an absurd difficulty spike in my opinion, and not for the right reason. Unfair deathtrap after unfair deathtrap, bad enemie spawns, the lava pits.... the lava pits sucked so fucking bad. I still loved the whole design of Atlantis, the gross flesh covered horror Pyramid making me quite uncomfortable. Atlantis in TR1 is unlike any interpretation I have ever seen. Looks amazing, but I sure went back to Lara's Mansion a couple of times, just to decompress after the 100 times I miss timed a jump trying to dodge a flying demon, face plating Lara straight into the next best lava pit. I miss tutorial levels, Lara's mansion is the shit, bring back tutorial levels you cowards!

Finally, of all the things I loved and hated about TR1, there is one thing I still haven't mentioned yet. The actual story of the game. The story really isn't anything. Aside from giving Lara a very well defined character, it's your typical treasure hunt. Lara gets hired by a mysterious millionaire to recover a lost treasure, millionaire turns out to be evil, you beat the evil millionaire and explode her Island. The End. Probably an unfortunate result of inexperience and a short dev cycle. I don't really blame them too much, but I think it says a lot about how they really didn't know what the story was when your Villains' henchman consist of a Lumberjack, an Evil French Man, a Cowboy and a Kid on a Skateboard ? To be fair: Kid with skateboard sliding around the corner, with his Uzis akimbo drawn like he was on his way to assassinate Tupac and Biggie himself, was hilarious. If anything I hope the next game has more kids on skateboards, I would 100% support it. Anyway on to Tomb Raider 2, really looking forward to that game.

So the original BioShock seems to be a divisse title nowadays. I still remember its release being full of floored reactions, holding it as a masterpiece of interactive storytelling. I suppose a decade plus of essays holding it up as the greatest piece of video game art ever was inevitably going to lead to a whiplash effect in the other direction. People have indeed come out in greater and greater numbers to decry Bioshock as highly overrated in both its gameplay and writing. And now, after my obligatory playthrough I seem to do every 1 – 2 years, I can still firmly plant my feet in the ground and say: I think BioShock is still a masterpiece.

The first 10 minutes embody everything BioShock is about. You're presented with this impossible city, a facade of endless freedom and possibility. Andrew Ryan's words really do sound like the ultimate utopia. A City where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And much like I can imagine the new citizens of Rapture felt when they first stepped out of the bathysphere, the reality of the situation quickly sets in. Rapture is no utopia, it's a rotten monument to one man's petty ego. Your journey takes you through what Ryan calls his Great Chain of Industry. Simply taking you through a tour of the lowest class places like Fountain Fisheries up to the high society luxury of Olympus Heights makes Rapture feel like such a believable setting. Every level fells like a vignette that explains the greater inner workings of its place on the great chain, as well as its inevitable downfall. I will say, as believable as Rapture manages to present itself, it does often suffer from beeing less a city and more a carnival ride. Giant neon signs point to important places, and levels have the occasional tendency to loop around into spots that make no sense at all. That issue isn't helped by the fact that BioShock has a really obnoxious guide arrow turned on by default. The Guide arrow completely kills any exploration, and I never understood why it's even in the game. Trust me, turn it off, it will do so much for BioShock's immersive qualities and Rapture isn't exactly an impossible maze to navigate.

On the gameplay front, BioShock is as prototypical a immersive sim as it gets. You get a standard arsenal of upgradable FPS weapons in addition to the now famous plasmids, basically Raptures version of magic. They are the genetic substances that lead to Raptures great downfall and what gives combat its edge. If guns are the slightly chewy bread of combat, plasmids are the butter that gives it flavor. There's a huge variety of Plasmids from throwable Lightning bolts to shooting straight up Bees, that mix well with a large enough pool of enemies, that all have dominant strategies to take them down faster. Combined with the frankly ludicrous amount of tonics, the game's version of body modifications, I would do the game a huge disservice by claiming there is no variety in its gameplay. I frankly reject the much heard criticism that Bioshock lacks variety since all you do is kill enemies and not much else. I don't see how that applies here, since Raptures 100% presents itself as hostile. It's a corpse at the bottom of the ocean, and basically everyone except for one person is out for your blood. And given how the plot eventually just flips everything on its head, I think it would be quite unfitting to break the very isolated and hostile atmosphere. The only real gameplay fault I can find is, once again, like the unnecessary guide arrow, the vitae chambers. Infinite checkpoints that revive you without punishment, that both break the believability of the setting and the general gameplay loop. Turn them off and set your own quick saves. At least on normal, Bioshock posses not much of a challenge anyway and by the end you'll be an immortal combat wizard anyway, with enemies not even getting close enough to touch you before you snap your fingers to set them on fire.

Lastly, since I choose to play the much hated remaster, I might as well say some words on the topic. Basically, I didn't have any real issues this time. There was the occasional looping audio and at one point in the research labs the sound just stopped working for some reason, forcing me to close and open the game again. Other than that, I had no crashes or anything of similar ilk, totally smooth sailing tbh. I do know about many of the really bad issues and have experienced them as well in the past. I can of course only speculate as to why nothing happened this time, but maybe it's an issue similar to what the original PC version of Dark Souls or Resident Evil 6 suffered from. Where piss poor optimization lead to weaker hardware basically breaking the game, so do look out for that if you're planing on playing BioShock with hardware that isn't state of the art. And play it you absolutely should, since it's still a deeply fascinating FPS deserving of all the praise thrown its way. Settle in, get cozzy with a blanket, step inside the bathysphere so you get to experience an evening with Sander Cohen.

Finally played this for the first time on PC with Automated Fix. Not gona lie, I really dig it. The atmosphere kills and I adore the soundtrack. I can't even say I agree this has aged horribly, it's damn well-designed. Basically a cinematic platformer like Prince of Persia or Another World but flipped into the third dimension. And just as unforgiving as its 2D sibllings aswell. I will finish this game eventually, but Sanctuary of the Scion has me kinda stuck right now, so might as well take a break, maybe try some of the other games.

Link to my full review of Tomb Raider: https://www.backloggd.com/u/NovaNiles/review/1411026/

American Mcgee's Alice may be my favorite adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. In terms of writing and atmosphere, it's certainly the cream of the crop. What Rouge Entertainment accomplished on the Quake 3 engine, of all things, is nothing short of incredible. I genuinely think when it comes to translating an Art style with the tech they had, they couldn't have done better. The dark, twisted atmosphere is killer and the soundtrack unmatched. The voice acting is also one of the best I have ever heard, with Sussie Bran as Alice and Roger Jackson as the cheshire cat beeing pitch perfect. I could honestly listen to them banter for ages. Its all wonderful, except for the gameplay. That is an entirely different can of worms.

Alice suffers what I like to call "second half dropoff syndrome". An unfortunate decease many, many games up until fairly recently have suffered from. Basically the first half is excellent, falls right into what its gameplay limitation are capable of, but then you hit the midway point. From then on it becomes awful, with bullshit enemies, instant death pits and levels that stretch on for way too long. For Alice, that point is about when you reach the level Mirror Image, the mad hatters' domain. The platforming turns to shit and most of the weapons become useless. The ice wand is already crazy overpowered, but introducing the jabberwocky's eye staff makes even that redounded. It kills all the challenge, and now the only threats are instant death pits. Unlucky then that Alice has tons of enemies who's single job it is to push you off narrow pathways. Great. I don't exactly think we needed that in a game where jumping isn't great to begin with. I probably shouldn't be surprised about those issues, considering American Mcgee used to work at Id software and many of Alice's exact issues can be found in Id's early catalog. The storm on the red queen's castle was a slog, combining all those issues. The atmosphere still fucks, but it's the point where I wouldn't blame anyone for just watching a Let's play instead.

I still recommend you check out Alice in any way you see fit because I think it's one of the defining pieces of Video Game art from the early 2000s, that sadly never got the spotlight it deserved. On the bright side, EA pretty much stopped giving a shit about the series and now just sells its sequel completely DRM free. So it's super easy to mod the original into the sequel, since it was originally sold as a bonus DLC remaster for Alice: Madness Returns. You can then just access it through the main menu of Madness Returns. So fuck EA and pirate the fuck out of their games. Rise up, Goth Gamer Nation.

Im not gona lie and say this a good game. What I am gona say is that I spend way too much with this. Half of it because its a legit fun, janky parcour game for free. Other half is just the amount of joy I got from shooting the shit with strangers in the ingame text chat. Be it just roasting eachother or just legit talking. For real gave me old internet vibes before people went insane and starting treating the internet like it was their fucking living room. Old COD lobbys and Space Station 13 come to mind. Just a solid vibe, we should get more games like this.