Actually a really solid game!

The gameplay loop is quite simple, but still so much fun. I like how the unlocks motivate you to try different levels with different characters, so you can't just cheese everything with whoever your favorite is. Speaking of unlocks, this game is heaven if you're an achievement hunter and I'll most certainly be going for the rest of those, since I've just got about half before the credits rolled. (Also there are many easter eggs and they're great!)

In the end I've had way more fun with Vampire Survivors than with several AAA games and you honestly can't go wrong with the entry price of just five bucks. If you're uncertain, I recommend checking out the mobile version - it's free and all ads are optional.

I always have a hard time succinctly describing my feelings on this game, because it's one of the best superhero games I've ever played and yet just thinking about playing it is exhausting on some level. When the fights are at their best, it's about as good as Arkham-style combat can be, forcing you to do a little dance of managing smaller orcs while trying to work your way around the captain's specific resistances and immunities. There are always credible threats to your health, but there are so many ways to turn things in your favor that it doesn't really ruin the power fantasy when your near-death experience is also a chance to instantly counter and decapitate some idiot loser who thinks this is his chance to kill you.

I just... don't care about the rest of it? The world is too big and the regions feel too similar, there's more Nemesis interactions than the previous game but when you get to a higher level it's just too exhausting to keep track of all of them. There's like a hundred of these bozos and they're all mad at me for cutting their arm off and buddy, get in line. I don't care about gear! I don't care about sending hitmen to rival captains or customizing my Tolkien tigers to spit Baja Blast or Code Red during a siege. These systems aren't really deep enough to feel like you're doing anything, and they have almost no stakes other than one more orc yelling at you. It's primarily exhausting because the player is obviously meant to find them equally compelling - unless you're dying constantly, deciding to go out and do the fun part of the game (running into a fort and killing the strong guys) means you just... win? The way the AI generates new characters isn't frequent or aggressive enough to counter the player, even when the difficulty is cranked up. It's truly a bizarre design decision to have the player beset on all sides by uncountable hordes of enemies in the plot and then decide in the gameplay that the AI armies will never chip away at your gains unless you let them. Those late-game fights against strong captains forcing you to get creative single-handedly carry this to a low 7/10 score, because without the variety in combat, even the nemesis system couldn't save the mess created by tacking on all these other systems.

Starfield is an incredibly unfortunate game on multiple fronts. It's not a title that can be labeled as "lazy" or "unpassionate" as love and effort oozes from almost every corner of the game from it's shipbuilder to the hundreds of planets you can explore. However, it's also clear that the scope of this game was never going to work with a Bethesda-esque RPG in mind. As a result, the game is incredibly unfocused and the quality of quests vary wildly from moment to moment. A truly special moment will come along every ten hours or so, but you'll end up filling the time between with meaningless and boring adventures that won't stick around in your mind for long.

This game is pretty good. It reminds me of the Retro Studio Donkey Kong games as weird of a comparison that might be, mostly with how its presents it content, with a big world map and optional paths and a time trial mode once you've beaten a level.

The games main drill is pretty fun to use and most levels have some sort of gimmick to them to keep each one feel unique, for better or for worse. Generally any power-up that took over your main drill attack tended to be much slower going and not as fun. There's also not as many levels as I would have liked. This game follows the basic platform game formula of bunch of levels, boss, next world and for some reason it only has 4 worlds? I would have liked one more at least, 5 feels rounded out nicely.

I've also encountered a few glitches on the Switch version, nothing major, but worth mentioning.
-I've been pretty frequently been placed on the wrong level after finishing it
-The was a breakable object in a level that just wasn't breaking properly until I restarted it.
- The final boss music just cut out in between attempts and I was just trying to fight it in creepy silence.

I haven't done all the optional content yet, but the time trials have medals to go for which is pretty cool, and each world seems to have at least one optional level per world. Definitly give it a try if you are fond of 2d platformers.

In theory, this game is doing a lot of really cool stuff. The art direction is phenomenal, I love the atmosphere and the little quirks, but it never takes any of its individual components far enough to really feel good to play. If it had leaned just slightly harder into being a roguelike imsim, if it had made the runs feel even slightly more varied, I think it would've doubled my interest. As it is, it's worth trying for sure, but literally three runs in it starts to feel repetitive as you realize you're just doing the same thing but with new equipment that makes it slightly easier to run through a room opening all the drawers and then running back to your ship.

Observer made me afraid to ring the buzzer. Who would’ve thought some of the best moments in gaming would be found interrogating tenants in a dingy Krakow apartment building? Poland’s blooberteam clearly researched the classics when refining their cyberpunk world. The developer’s most ingenious trick gives in-game justification for their occasional jump scares and catalogue of post-processing effects. Whereas their previous game, Layers of Fear, leaned on these tricks to its detriment, Observer earns these moments without revealing whether its a misfired synapse or the malfunctions of a cybernetic body.

I am immensely thankful for a dystopian futuristic setting that is not based on a version of the United States of America taking over the entire world. What a breath of fresh air, a cyberpunk Polish Republic is so much more interesting than all the Kojima-styled game settings we usually get.

The game is at its best in the small interactions, where there is room for intricate worldbuilding and fantastic voice acting, but the main story made me lose interest a few hours in. Visually, it soon gets ugly, which is intentional, but it gets to the point of being detrimental to the gameplay; often the augmentation systems weirdly cover the entire screen and you can hardly see anything. The glitch effects make narrative sense but make the experience feel way in need of being remastered, which makes playing the System Redux version the obvious choice.

Greater than the sum of its parts!

Zooming out, the trilogy tells a great space opera that borrows from genre staples that builds something rare and unique.

Rich world building, great cast of characters (even the human ones!)

Surprisingly delicate romance system! I usually don't really care for player sexual romance in games, I just make a choice and run with it.

But here, It felt real. My Sheppard relationships evolved and reacted in a way that almost feels organic. My favourite bit was finding out that Garrus and Tali got together, it was very refreshing to see a relationship grow independently of the player.

My hot take about choices in these games is that most of them feels forced and only there because its technically a wRPG and some freedom is expected - I'm sorry but I don't see a version of a full renegade Sheppard working with the story. I also don't really know how losing characters prematurely and cutting their arc early only to be replaced with placeholders can help the story.

Blue and Red morality is a leftover from KotOR that doesn't really make sense in Mass Effect and its very prominent throughout the trilogy.

I do think some of the choices are impactful and interesting but moat of them ring hollow even if the games get clever about working around you.

Just a couple thoughts after finishing the games, I really appreciate them in retrospect.

Forza Horizon 4, but in Mexico. I'd say if you enjoyed that then you'd also have a great time with this entry but for whatever reason I just can't gel with FH5 as much as I did its predecessor.

Maybe it's fatigue, maybe it's the locale not interesting me as much or maybe it's just noticing the things that didn't bother me last time as it was my first experience with the series. Every line of dialogue which seems like it's purposefully trying to ape Steve Buscemi in 30 Rock, interesting set pieces but with boring, indistinct track layouts, being constantly interrupted in the first 5-10 hours with new events being added to an already overstuffed map or having another set of numbers pop up or increase to give you a serotonin hit to keep you playing for as long as possible.

It still looks great and blasting around the world in each vehicle is still a gratifying experience as you bounce through sand dunes or jungle areas with reckless abandon. But while I think I had a decent enough time overall, at the end of my last session I couldn't help but feel that I had just spent three hours consuming content, rather than having a properly enjoyable experience.

My guess is that open-world racing might just not be for me in the long run and I just prefer games in this genre where I can properly learn specific tracks with distinguishing features and how each car will perform on them.