A very short but fun little puzzle game! Imagine you're playing inventory management in Resident Evil and that's all there is to this.

You'll get all kinds of strange inventory grids throughout the game and move items around to fit them in there. You need to fit ALL the items in or use them up in some way to move on to the next level.

At first, you'll move guns around and then you'll be reloading those guns. Soon after, you'll be combining herbs to save space. But then you'll be eating those herbs and using first aid spray because you're hurt. Eventually to make room, you'll find yourself eating a rotten egg to hurt yourself, to combine an herb, to heal yourself and then combine ammo powder together to reload a gun that is then placed in your inventory... and it goes on from there. It can be a little mind bending at times and that's where it really shines!

It's very short, you'll finish these 40 levels in 1-2 hours, probably closer to an hour. And even though it's short, you may get tired of this one by the time you reach the level 20s. It depends on how much you like puzzle style games.

Also, if you haven't played Resident Evil before, the combining of the herbs and ammo may really confuse you. They could've had a little bit more explanation on that for newcomers.

And because it's based so heavily on Resident Evil, there isn't any mechanic (not that I can think of) introduced that isn't RE based, which is a shame.

Fun little puzzle game if you're looking for something a little different! Oh and it's pretty cheap on Steam. Big plus there.

This is a very cute and cozy little game that focuses on taking pictures of tons of different things to finish quests. This adventure has an amazing vibe to it with fun characters and silly situations that's definitely worth your time.

The game loop is very simple. You show up to an area, you scope it out, except quests, take photos to trigger the quest or turn them in to who requested it and then gain enough stamps to move on to the next area. Venturing into a new area is super fun, discovering all of the inhabitants and watching everything unfold is a joy.

You'll do quests for ghosts and bugs and campers and all kinds of characters. That truly is where the game shines because the writing for everyone is really fun and it's all in the name of just having a good time.

Though cozy, the developer designed the game in such a way that, yes, you can VERY EASILY finish the game but for those who are completionists, there are a lot of interesting quests and approaches to taking photos that will have you scratching your head a bit. It's less about solving puzzles and more about solving riddles, so for some quests, you will be experimenting a lot. This can be a blessing and a curse because there were definitely a couple quests where I felt super smart for figuring it out but others where I had to look it up as I knew there was no way I would figure out what the vague quest text was getting at. And it ended up, yea, there was no way I would've figured that out.

The only other faults I can give the game is that, at times, the camera view feels awkward. I guess you can chalk this up to 3d world issues, but the camera just controls strangely in certain areas, and I didn't feel like I could always see everything I needed to. Maybe that was the point?

I also found myself hitting the wrong buttons a lot. I'm not sure if it was the layout or the flow of button presses but I would constantly hit the menu button when I wanted to take a photo. I was also hitting the wrong button a lot to select an ability while in camera mode. It wasn't a huge hassle but it happened enough that I noticed it was a strange phenomenon.

Despite those small things, this is an awesome one to check out!

There's no story or real point to the game besides cleaning some old dirty stuff. Despite this, I find it super relaxing and finished it over the course of 6 months. Whenever I just felt the need to chill out and not sink myself into a narrative of another game, this was the comfort game I went to.

I only knocked off half a star besides some times there were some very annoying spots to try to clean. This would harsh my good vibes at times. Other than that, I still bounce in for the DLC when it comes out. I love it!

This is a very interesting match up! SpongeBob meets Power Wash Simulator, you wouldn't think it would work, but I guess if there is something dirty to clean, then it can fit into this universe! I watched SpongBob more back when it was just beginning and it's crazy to see how big it's gotten over the years.

As far as the game goes, you will power wash some of the area within Bikini Bottom like Spongebob's house, the Krusty Krab and more. There are little details strewn about for fans of the show and they even added the extra detail of you playing as a fish from SpongBob's world. You'll see it when you are watching your replay.

My only real gripe with this one is that you're only getting a handful of things to clean for the $8 it costs. Maybe it's priced a little steep for what it is but I guess it depends on how you feel about the game and licensed DLC.

All in all, even if you're not a SpongeBob fan but you love Power Wash Simulator, you may still have a lot of fun with this one.

Oh, one other things to mention is that this is the first DLC to add new achievements to the game, so if you're looking for new ones to get, here you go.

An absolutely ridiculous and silly adventure game. This game is basically if you took a point and click adventure game and made it really fast paced with different scenarios where you need to act quick (think Warioware) with a HUGE dash of immature humor.

Note: I played this on my Xbox Series, not WIndows PC but BackLoggd doesn't have that selection for some reason.

In this game, you play as McPixel who is supposed to be a humorous take on McGyver (for the kids out there, this was an old show where a guy could make any object to get himself out of a jam).

You get thrown into scenarios that run the gamut of "bomb in normal every day situation" to "bomb at a modeling show" or "monster attacking city" or "I'm an Amoeba". All the while, you will be making the worst decisions you can, as you click on objects. Not that you get a choice in the matter, you basically click a lamp post, or another person and McPixel will surprise you with whatever he does. Some times it helps the situation, most of the time it makes it worse!

This game is 100% based on the humor. If you don't like immature humor about pee, poo, hitting, getting hit, humping and all sorts of other craziness, you won't like this. I happen to like a lot of the humor in this game. It's not perfect and some of the gags I do roll my eyes at, but there were many times I giggled or out right laughed because it caught me off guard.

There are some solutions that are really tough to figure out and there isn't any sort of logic to it, so you just need to keep trying different things. So there are times where you just feel stuck and want to move on, but you can't. This happened to me more than a couple times and slightly soured my experience where I would have to walk away from it.

There were also some scenarios that were too long for their own good. Like some that had multiple stages of actions and others that were just several minutes long. These could take you a while to get to the point where you're trying to guess the solution again to break out of it and if you are stuck, then it becomes a bit frustrating.

I have to give the creator a lot of credit. Whether this game is for you or not, he's created a lot of different scenarios, artwork and gags that you can tell probably took him a good chunk of the full ten years or so between this and the last McPixel game. And for the most part, I had a hell of a time with this one! It really cheered me up. I just wish I didn't get stuck.

I'm really torn on this one. Immortality, from a development, mechanic and production standpoint is amazing. However, I'm not sure I fully understood what was going on in the story, how the mechanics actually work or what I was supposed to take from all of this.

I love the movie clip approach with this game but I just wish the story was more cohesive and less random. It's basically a randomized, video scavenger hunt and I get that they wanted this to be mysterious and rewarding for those seeking everything out, but after the novelty wears off, it’s not really that fun. In the end, the credits rolled and I don't know why. I think I have an idea of what was happening but I don't fully "get it." 🤷

I've been playing the 2D Sonic games since I was a kid with the Genesis and the Game Gear and I think Sonic Mania is the best of them all!

The game incorporates levels from all the past Genesis games and kind of does a "best of" mixed with a few new levels and worlds. You may start in a level and it all feels familiar but then it changes a bit from what you remember. You could say it's been remixed and that's kind of the theme in this game. It's everything you already love about the franchise but it's been remixed and improved. The levels, the moves, the characters, the enemies... everything you remember is here but it's either improved or made to a grander scale. All the while, it plays in glorious widescreen and looks gorgeous and colorful!

One of the stand out new worlds is Studiopolis Zone, which puts Sonic and crew into a movie/tv studio type setting, which, as odd as it sounds, seems to fit right in.

The game has also kept a lot of the music I like from the past games (which I still find myself humming now and then) and includes, you guessed it, remixed versions of them.

One critique I will give the game is that a couple of the bosses didn't seem to fit too well with the Sonic flow of things. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this game.

Just as a bonus, I wanted to point out how much I like the art style for the opening cinematic too. It's VERY 90s Sonic and that is all that matters.

I really hope we get a sequel to this soon!

Miles Morales a fun, polished game, but I feel the first Spider-Man is a better game over all. This one features virtually the same gameplay plus one new feature "Venom" and almost no interesting super villains to fight (Rhino, plus one new one that I'm sure most will not care about much). The story and characters are really what kept this one going for me. This really felt more like a side story to the first game, maybe a HUGE DLC or something of that ilk. Luckily, I really like the first game, so I didn't mind playing more of it.

This is the first Ratchet and Clank where I actually cared about the story and I'm interested to see where they're taking it with the next one. Also, graphically, I think this is the most gorgeous 3D platformer ever created!

While this is Ratchet and Clank through and through, I'm not sure it's the series at it's best? In presentation and fidelity, it definitely is. However, I almost felt like the Remake from 2016 felt better in a gameplay sense?

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's still a fun game but I feel like most fights were the same where I would throw out a couple Fungi's and a sprinkler and kind of just do some support and clean up in the back. It felt easy to cheese at times.

Also, enemies seemed to repeat a lot more throughout this game than in the 2016 remake. I felt like I fought the same enemies and boss types A LOT through out my play through. It kind of felt like "Oh, these guys again" a lot.

Despite that, the game does offer a lot of variety. Lots of extra mini game type stuff like riding the speedle, the virus tank missions and Clanks puzzle areas... I really appreciated the variety and how it broke up the main game. If this game was ONLY the shooting portion, I'm not sure I would've liked it as much.

There was another issue I had where I was on a certain level trying to mop up all the collectibles but I was having a hard time accessing certain parts. I wasn't aware that later in the game, these areas "officially" opened up and I could explore them to finish the level then. I wish they put something up, even like a little character to be say "Hey Rivet, we're all good here!" Or "Hey it's under construction over here" something to tip the player off that they can't go there just yet.

I also want to point out that the rumbling and feedback on the PS5 controller needs to be experienced in this game, it really does take it to another level. The feeling of some of the weapons with the controller was something I was not expecting and really enjoyed.

So, while this game may be a bit prettier than the 2016 remake, offer some variety with the gameplay and have a really cool "rumble experience" I do feel like the weapons and gunplay were maybe a half step back. I don't feel bad putting this game at the same rating as the 2016 remake because I think they're equals in certain regards.

However, I can't wait to see what they do in the next sequel because I think that they are going to absolutely nail it. At least, I hope!

For some, no combat in a game may be a huge no. For me, as long as I’m having fun, that is all I care about. While Submerged: Hidden Depths is fun and has a very interesting world to explore, it’s a short adventure that I can’t help but feel like it could’ve had a lot more going for it.

I loved the original game that came out several years ago and I remember reading that this game was coming out and I was very excited. Then I found out it was a Stadia exclusive. So, because of that, I kind of forgot about it. Recently when I saw that it was now available on Steam, I was pretty excited to jump in!

If you liked the first game, this is really just a prettier update with a few more things to do. There is more to explore, more puzzles, more collectibles, and while still very abstract, a bigger story. It’s a 3D exploration game that doesn’t have any combat. You solve very light parkour puzzles and navigate your way around a world that is completely overtaken by the ocean.

This time you have 2 playable characters, a brother and a sister. The sister has some ailment on her arm, which shows as black vine type things. You’ll find giant black vine things all around the world as well. The siblings are in this sunken city to find large green seeds that will purify the area and hopefully rid her of this strange thing on her arm. Through little, graphical journal entries, you find that the siblings were shunned just about everywhere they went and eventually ended up here. I may have missed it but I’m not sure how they knew this place was the key to ridding them of this black overgrowth, but here we are.

You jump in your boat and search around for ruined buildings to explore that may house the seeds. You play as the sister for the longer parts when you collect the green seeds and the brother for the very short portions where you just collect a journal page. They both do the same parkour puzzle solving and navigation around the ruins but the areas for the sister are much larger and you’ll be spending most of your time playing as her.

As I mentioned, there are other extra things to do in the game a well. You can find different species of wildlife, find lookouts that give you a vantage point of the area and even collect speed upgrades for your boat. The extra things don’t affect progress at all. They also don’t help you find items on the map for the most part. When you find a lookout, it may uncover 1 or 2 things to find but there’s no real reason to seek them out besides achievements.

I also wish the lookouts that you find had more substance to them in an exploration sense. You kind of just find them, climb them and activate them. There really isn’t any kind of puzzle to them, which is disappointing.

There is a theme here with that though, things just not having much substance or point. The narrative portion of the game is straight forward and doesn’t have any gate keeping associated with it. This is a blessing and a curse in my opinion though. While I like the openness of doing things the way I want, I also wish there was a reason to collect the things in the world. Like, before you can do the ruins, make the player have to find the animal that lives in the area or when you find a lookout, have that uncover the area for you more. It doesn’t feel like there is any incentive to do the extra things.

If you do insist on collecting everything (like I did) you’ll be aimlessly wondering around, hoping you run into these places and items. I got bored and pulled up a guide very soon after finishing the story.

With all that said, during the main hours of the game, I had a lot of fun exploring and uncovering things. The game definitely has that OH ONE MORE thing mechanic going for it. Where you'll be thinking okay, just get this last thing and quit for now only to find yourself grabbing 4-5 items before you finally do.

There are also towering black vine giants that you eventually see walking around the seascape. They are really cool, but they pose no threat to you. You can boat right up to them and they don't care about you at all. I know this game is billed as a more relaxing, exploration game but it really would've been cool to have these monsters coming after you or at least taking a swipe at you. How about just acknowledge you?

While exploring, I got caught on the geometry quite a bit. It's not usually big boxes or things that are evidently in the way, it'll be like a floor board or a slightly higher ridge. This was very annoying when you see a ladder and you have to move like 6 inches over because the game won’t let you approach the ladder from that spot.

There are also these elevators that you can activate while you're on them or off of them and it's really annoying if you accidentally activate it while you're off because you then have to wait to activate it again and wait for it to come back and sometimes, these elevators are traveling an enormous height and it could take a bit of time!

The UI is not great. It looks misplaced and strange the way it’s laid out on screen. Like the boost for the boat was covered up by another graphic for some reason? It just looks strange.

All in all, I liked this game, but I didn’t love it. I think the collectibles should matter in some way and that the wildlife and black vine monsters should interact with you somehow as well. There is some jankyness with the game in that the UI isn’t great and some design decisions in the game I really am curious as to why they went that way. Overall, my biggest disappointment is how the overall gameplay loop doesn’t change much from what the first game was. I feel there was a lot of things they could’ve expanded on and they did do a little bit of that by making a slightly bigger world and expanding on the story a bit but Submerged has the capacity for more.

If you're looking for a pleasant 2D platformer that is a very quick playthrough and won't challenge you much (sort of a cozy, comfort food style game) this might be the game for you.

Hoa is a vibrant 2D platformer that's all about collecting butterflies. No joke! Some may balk and think the game is too childish for them and they may be right. I wish I could say that the gameplay would change your mind, but it's very simple and there isn't much substance. That is until the final level, which kind of comes out of nowhere as it will challenge you in ways that are almost experimental.

However, the game is competently made, it's unique in its setting and characters (I've never played as a little flower gnome thing that does favors for giant bugs before) and it's comfort food for those who like platformers.

The pink puff, or as most of us know him “The most powerful video game character of all time!” is back and he is in a new game! Actually, it’s a remake of a Wii release but either way, it’s more Kirby! I’m a fan of Kirby myself and I was looking forward to this game as I somehow missed out on the original release of Return to Dream Land.

😎 Return to Dream Land doesn’t necessarily do anything new or revolutionary but it does the Kirby formula well. You’ll enjoy 2d platforming in several different settings. You’ll float around and find fun secrets. You’ll suck up enemies to get cool abilities and you’ll fight bosses aplenty.

🤖 From what I understand there are a couple of new abilities that you can get from enemies, like the Robo Mech Suit (is that what it’s called?) where Kirby wears some, mech armor and can shoot bullets and mortar style projectiles. I thought this suit was super fun to use and was a good addition.

🤩 The whole time you’re playing, you are in a cute, vibrant and quite beautiful world. As easy as it may or may not be to remake a Wii game, they really made this game look nice.

➕ One of the other features of the game that I really liked were these super powerful abilities you get every so often from bigger enemies. For example, you might come across a powerful swordsman who then gives you a GIGANTIC sword when you absorb his ability. You’ll then use this huge sword on enemies and big ropes to get through the rest of the level. There are other super abilities too and they’re always a good time.

💫 Depending on how much you like Kirby, there is a lot of replay value here. There is a huge batch of mini games available that you can play single or multiplayer. There is a Boss Rush Mode too. There is also an extra mode where you can play through the game again but it's much more difficult.

✨ But the most exciting piece of content to play through after the main game is a brand new chapter they added in called Magolor Epilogue. I played through this and I didn’t care for it as much as the main game but it was still fun. You get to play as the villain from the main game as he tries to get himself together after what happened to him. You will play through many shorter levels and upgrade Magolor as you approach, what I would consider, the toughest boss in the game.

🤷Thought I had fun, I would’ve liked the ability to play as any of Kirby’s friends, like Waddle Dee or King Dedede but they only let you do this in the boss rush mode that you unlock when you complete the game. Odd.

😔 Something else I did want to point out is that Forgotten Land had only just come out about a year before this remake and it’s a shame that none of the advancements or updates from that game carried over or made an appearance here or at least in the Epilogue that was added. It would’ve been cool to have some parts of the epilogue in a 3D world.

🗈 Also, it was interesting to me that Nintendo choose to remake Return to Dream Land amongst all of the other Kirby games that are available. The cynical part of me wants to suggest that this was just an easy port for them to have ready to release from the Wii, but considering they did add a whole Epilogue to it, it’s much more than what they did with New Super Mario Bros Wii U Deluxe or whatever it was called.

👍Anyway, I would’ve liked a few other tweaks in this remake but overall, it’s another fun Kirby game you can play on the Switch, which is not a bad thing at all.

Exo One is a short, abstract, flying marble from outer space game. Sounds intriguing, right? It's nice that the game doesn't overstay it's welcome and it was fun at times to just glide around and enjoy the weird atmosphere, but at times the controls can be finicky and I had no idea what I was, what was going on or why I was doing what I was doing.

You play as a sphere, that I think is supposed to be a spacecraft, that can change it's shape into a disc to glide around. You use the games physics to gain speed and get to the exit (a beam of blue light) as quick as you can. You also collect little balls of orange light that are said to upgrade you, but I'm not entirely sure I noticed the difference?

You'll glide around all kinds of under-developed planets and environments while breaking the speed barrier and seeing random flashes of photos and hearing random talk over a radio. The best I can guess is you're supposed to be some kind of remnant of the past that is remembering things that happened in space? Or maybe you are an alien craft that is picking up frequencies? I have no idea.

While in some levels, it feels like you're in a dream state as you glide and roll through these landscapes, but there were times where the controls just felt off. The game some times will force you to go one way and your ship starts to get all wonky like it can't decide which way to go. It really broke the immersion of being there.

As I mentioned, the game is short so you won't be frustrated long and you won't have time to figure out what is going on. But if you just want to glide around for fun, what the hey.

An awesome, button-mashy feeling brawler game that feels like it's trying to be the 3d version of Hotline Miami. Tons of fun abilities to fight the large variety of enemies and lots of references to action movies and videogames. Very fun!

I wanted to finish this in time for when it was removed from Game Pass, but I ran out of time. I was playing it the night before it was being taken off game pass and I got to the boss that drives the harvester farm vehicle thing and got frustrated. I probably died on that boss about 15 times, it was late, I had work in the morning, I hung it up. Maybe I'll return to it at some point in the future.

Come for the dinosaur gimmick, stay for the bonkers story and really fun gameplay! As much as others are slamming this game for microtransactions, or for it being soulless, or saying it’s a guilty pleasure, the game offers enough variety in its multiplayer gameplay that it had me glued to it for a few weeks and I had a great time!

So, I have a bit of history with this game. My first experience with Exoprimal was the first announcement. When they showed all the dinosaurs pouring out of that portal, coming for the team, I was in! However, when the beta finally rolled around, I really didn’t have a great time with it. I wrote it off and said, eh, not for me.

But then the full release came to Game Pass and figured I would check it out. It took a few matches for this to really gel for me. I could tell during those matches, that there was something to this and I had to find out what it was. Then about 30 hours later, having completed the main story… I love this game!

While you may argue that a great game will hook you immediately, and most of the time I do agree with that sentiment, there are those games, usually multiplayer, that take a little time to win you over; if you give them the chance. Exoprimal is one of those games. It’s like Overwatch with a learning curve!

Everything in this game takes a little time to appreciate but it’s worth it! There is a surface to scratch through. Sort of like unwrapping a lot of paper, plastic and twist ties to finally get your toy out of the box.

What makes Exoprimal different is that it combines PVE and PVP into one game. You’ll play half a round killing dinosaurs with your group of 5 and then you’ll spend the other half fighting against another 5 person team AND more dinosaurs to try and win the match. How quickly you finish waves of enemies dictates how quickly you get to the PVP round and you could potentially get a huge head start if the other team isn’t doing well. And you can jump in with something called a Dominator, which turns you into a huge dinosaur like a T-REX to go after the enemy team and delay their process even more WHICH IS ALWAYS FUN.

The game is basically a weird action movie playing out in a video game. And on top of that, I really found myself loving the story, as nonsensical and weird as it is. I’m not even sure if I fully understand what happened? Strike that. I definitely don’t! And while I didn’t care about the characters at all when the game started, by the end, I did. In fact, there was a cutscene towards the end of the game that legitimately had me laughing out loud and games RARELY do that for me.

It’s also interesting how you can ONLY unlock more story beats in the game by finishing matches. You get a little progress bar and it’ll tell you, once you reach this point, you’ll get the next cutscene. And this is also how you get to unlock riads and boss battles with your teams. The story beats dictate whether you’re running into a character on the battle field or fighting a big bad. I thought this approach was pretty unique and really keeps you involved!

Quite honestly, what the game should be is a 5 or 10 person coop game. The PVP with the cube and hammer stuff feels very tacked on to me, while the PVE stuff feels very natural. Running around the city with friends, destroying dinosaurs is so much fun. Randomly joining a 10 man raid with both teams and taking down a huge boss is the best part of the game! Fighting another enemy team in this is…fine.

Though I will say that one of my top experience was in PVP. We were about to win the match by pushing our cube to the end and the sniper (I forget the class name) was shooting it from far away and about to disable it. So, I through up some of the buildable platforms that you can jump on in front of it at different heights and then we were able to secure the cube while the sniper kept just shooting the platform from their vantage point. This was a great feeling to win that way!

One thing is for sure is that each match will keep you on your toes. Sometimes you’re just killing dinosaurs, sometimes you’re protecting nodes, sometimes you’re escorting someone, and sometimes the game just takes you to a huge raid will all 10 players!

Another great feeling is unleashing your ultimate on a huge dinosaur or team to take them out. Have a T REX after you? Direct ultimate to take out the last quarter of their health!
I know I’ve been gushing about this game and you’re thinking, why did you give this a 3.5 if you like it so much? Well, there are definitely some things I’m not a fan of.

First off, the overall art style is bland and in some ways, the game is kind of generic. As pointed out above, I don’t remember the sniper class name… off the top of my head, I can’t remember any of the class names. I guess maybe because I didn’t grow up as a huge mech fan, but it was really hard for me to discern the difference between the classes in the game at first or even remember the names of the classes because that just doesn’t gel for me. Every exo suit, as their called, is different and offers different strengths but it takes a while to learn these things. The suits for me basically become things like “Oh the shooty guy” or the “grenade guy” or the “healing goblin guy.”

The environment and the cyber-ish, dystopia look of the cities you fight in aren’t very unique looking to me. They look like they could’ve been a Unity demo or something. There are areas that are beautiful to look at but there is a lack of landmarks and central design in the maps to help make these places memorable. The characters are in the same boat, as I mentioned above. The characters get more exciting when they start adding in some of the crazy skins you can unlock, but then that some times takes you out of the experience. Playing as a football player while a crazy AI is trying to destroy you, it doesn’t work in this game. I think the game taking itself too seriously is where it needs to stay, not being silly.

Unlocks take a LONG time to unlock. You get war chests to unlock stuff every now and then but it took me a lot time to get anything of value. The free tier of the battle pass is also represented terribly here where with the Battle Pass you get something new every level up, on the free tier, you’ll get something like every 6 levels and it’s nothing exciting (maybe a not very fun emote or something).

Speaking of the Battle Pass, the microtransactions are also kind of gross right out of the gate. $5 for a set of clothes and emojis for a character? Get out of here.

And as much as I like the nonsensical story, I think it’s a double edged sword. There are parts of it that are like “What?!” or “Wait how does this even work?” which I thinki could be a turn off for some. But that’s what you get with time traveling, parallel dimensions, Evil AI and Mechs from Japan.

I’m still picking at the last few online achievements here and there (Wow, kill 100,000 dinosaurs? Gonna be here a while…) and I’m going to keep playing off and on for a bit. I don’t plan on buying any microtransactions or the battle pass and I think that if you ignore that part of the game and push through some of the learning curve here, you’ll have a good time! I know that’s a big ask for some, but for me, it was worth it.